Why I love Barbara Stanwyck’s performance in… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

Why I love Bar­bara Stanwyck’s per­for­mance in Dou­ble Indemnity

03 Feb 2019

Words by Adam Scovell

Two people, a woman in sunglasses and a man in a suit, sitting at a counter in a dimly lit, old-fashioned bar or diner setting.
Two people, a woman in sunglasses and a man in a suit, sitting at a counter in a dimly lit, old-fashioned bar or diner setting.
The sil­ver screen icon sub­vert­ed her hero­ine image to deliv­er one of Hollywood’s most mem­o­rable villains.

A woman was stand­ing there. I had nev­er seen her before.” This ordi­nary sen­tence is how James M Cain first intro­duces his most bril­liant femme fatale, Phyl­lis Diet­rich­son, in his hard­boiled 1944 noir Dou­ble Indem­ni­ty. He con­tin­ues: She was maybe 31 or 32, with a sweet face, light blue eyes, and dusty blonde hair. She was small, and had on a suit of blue house pyja­mas. She had a washed-out look.”

Con­sid­er­ing this every­day­ness, it’s sur­pris­ing to find Phyl­lis in Bil­ly Wilder’s much cel­e­brat­ed adap­ta­tion played by one of most pop­u­lar actress­es of the moment, Bar­bara Stan­wyck. How do you make one of the most famous women in Hol­ly­wood ordi­nary? Yet in a remark­ably know­ing piece of cast­ing against type, Stan­wyck gave a per­for­mance that opened up her own range and ulti­mate­ly defined exact­ly how to play the sort of evil temptress­es that dom­i­nat­ed film noir dur­ing this period.

With the keen eye of Ray­mond Chan­dler on script duties, Wilder’s take on Cain’s nov­el is lean­er, pun­ish­ment-rid­den and sharp­er, if only to toe the line with the Hays Code. Still, at its core is the sto­ry of insur­ance sales­man and heeled sap Wal­ter Neff (Fred Mac­Mur­ray) who becomes quick­ly embroiled in the mur­der of Phyl­lis’ bor­ing but wealthy hus­band (Tom Powers).

Their inge­nious plot to rid them­selves of him goes to plan but soon unrav­els as Neff’s insur­ance men­tor, Bar­ton Keyes (Edward G Robin­son), begins to sus­pect some­thing awry with the huge pay­out now due to Phyl­lis. Add to this the con­niv­ing dou­ble cross­es under­neath Phyl­lis’ soft-eyed per­sona, her impli­ca­tion in the death of her husband’s first wife, and an affair with the lover (Byron Barr) of her step-daugh­ter, Lola (Jean Heather), and a com­plex web of crime is laid.

Dou­ble Indem­ni­ty has a hard edge, not least because Cain based it on a real-life mur­der com­mit­ted by Ruth Sny­der in the 1920s. The image of her exe­cu­tion on the elec­tric chair on the front page of an edi­tion of The Dai­ly News is one of the most star­tling pho­tographs of the Depres­sion era. One of the most effec­tive aspects of the film comes from the real-life sce­nario that inspired it: the mur­der was com­mit­ted by ordi­nary, almost banal look­ing people.

Telling­ly, we bare­ly see Phyl­lis in her first shot, half seen upstairs in a tow­el. It’s as if she fools the cam­era into believ­ing she’s aver­age. It’s under­stand­able why Stan­wyck was ini­tial­ly had reser­va­tions about tak­ing the role. Her image at the time was glam­orous, soft focussed, a pin­na­cle of sen­su­al eroti­cism and yet simul­ta­ne­ous­ly mater­nal. Would play­ing a ruth­less killer of Joe Schmucks real­ly dam­age her reputation?

Two people sitting in a dimly lit room, a man and a woman, engaged in conversation. Furniture and decor visible in the background.

Wilder works well with her on the cre­ation of Phyl­lis, a char­ac­ter that iron­i­cal­ly seems to mim­ic the sort of Hol­ly­wood Hills pres­tige that Stan­wyck her­self was the epit­o­me of. But she bril­liant­ly gets it wrong. She wears an ill-fit­ting wig that brings out the con­tours of her face and dress­es halfway between lazy lounge lizard and jad­ed house­wife try­ing to retain youth­ful vibran­cy. Even the anklet – the item of cloth­ing that first draws Walter’s atten­tion – feels fraud­u­lent, a device so obvi­ous­ly con­coct­ed that only a los­er of Neff’s cal­i­bre can’t see through it.

All of it is con­trived, but effec­tive­ly so. In the nov­el Neff seems to be aware of this, though Chan­dler damp­ens it down or at least has Neff excuse him­self as if he’s know­ing­ly fol­low­ing his own death dri­ve as well as the allure: I wasn’t the only one that knew about that shape. She knew about it her­self, plen­ty.” It’s a shift that gives Stan­wyck room to ramp up the ice.

With­in all of these high-shoul­dered trouser suits, pyja­mas and indul­gent faux-mourn­ing cloth­ing is Stan­wyck her­self. Her deliv­ery is sharp yet detached, spar­ring with Neff who’s still a fast talk­er; a door-to-door sales­man who knows the drill but ulti­mate­ly is tak­en in by her hon­ey­suck­le charm. Behind this per­sona, sul­try and alarm­ing, lies a cold­ness. Her eyes seem to scream warn­ings of ulte­ri­or motives but it’s only pathos; Wal­ter is still none the wis­er, seem­ing to for­get him­self after his ini­tial suspicions.

Stan­wyck uses all of that sil­ver screen allure, a hero­ine image built over a decade of such roles. It’s almost as if she has removed her­self from her own body, play­ing some­one that des­per­ate­ly wants to inhab­it her own real-life per­sona. She’s a blank can­vas – and a dan­ger­ous one at that. I’m rot­ten to the heart,” she admits lat­er on, though it’s only a truth that trick­les out in swift exchange for a bullet.

It should be not­ed that at this point in her career Stan­wyck wasn’t just at the top of her own game but at the top of every game: the high­est paid actress in Hol­ly­wood with a hand­ful of Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions to her name. She was not a nat­ur­al fit for the role of a killer; a grafter per­haps but not a manip­u­la­tor like Phyl­lis. And yet Wilder could see per­fect­ly well how an inver­sion of her on-screen per­sona could work. How all of that skill in her deliv­ery, that open, naïve heart and moments of feisty inde­pen­dence could be turned into some­thing darker.

By 1944 she had already played the con artist Jean in Pre­ston Sturges’ The Lady Eve, but the stakes in Wilder’s film were much high­er. Jokey card-shark­ing for a hap­less heir’s cash seems miles away from the con­niv­ing Phyl­lis, play­ing every­one off against one anoth­er and doing so with­out a flick­er of guilt – a pre­cise, cal­cu­lat­ed evil that’s so effec­tive even the char­ac­ter her­self seems unaware of the reality.

But then, think of an image that real­ly defines Stan­wyck as a per­former. Chances are that, far from those warm, feisty roles of hard-worn lovers and cat­tle-ranch­ers, her endur­ing image will be that of a chanc­ing vamp, hid­ing the empti­ness of her eyes behind dark glass­es while con­coct­ing mur­der in a super­mar­ket. It is the ulti­mate image of mas­cu­line gulli­bil­i­ty, of a sharp-wit­ted pup­pet mas­ter, and one of the best vil­lain­ous per­for­mances Hol­ly­wood ever saw.

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