Double Indemnity

⚖The case for it

Walter Huff talks straight at you from after the fact, an ordinary chatty insurance man who makes it easy to follow him down, and Cain gives him a hundred and thirty pages with “not. A. Word. Wasted.” Phyllis is the reason people remember it, “a flesh and blood embodiment of the goddess of death” rather than a stock villain. The insurance mechanics are the pleasure, watching a scheme get engineered and a claims man start pulling at it. Readers describe how “this sense of foreboding hangs over each and every sentence.” Lola gets more room here than the film allowed her.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Walter and Phyllis are plotting by their second meeting, and readers who wanted the pull established first report “I wanted more sparks between Walter and Phyllis.” He curdles in the back half too, “kind of creepy, in a lecherous middle-aged man sort of way,” once the scheme is running. The blow-by-blow planning drags for readers who wanted motion, with “too much attention to Walter’s detailed and devious planning.” Momentum flags generally after the crime. And the ending divides everyone, called strange and overdone by readers holding the tighter Wilder film in mind.

— the honest librarian

3h

honest hours

4

sittings