Trading Car Insurance by Client $$$

 The story line of "Double Indemnity"  is about an insurance agent (Mr. Huff) who in his eagerness to find one of his clients (Mr. Nirdlinger) to renew his car coverage, found a lady, Mr. Nirdlinger's wife (Mrs. Phyllis Nirdlinger) with whom starts more than a simple client relationship. Mr. Huff and Mrs. Nirdlinger together with Miss Lola Nirdlinger, Mrs. Nirdlinger's step-daughter, are the characters of this tale where film noir style is notable. In one side Mr. Huff was trying to make money through selling auto insurance and the other side, Mrs. Nirdlinger found the perfect piece to carry out her mission: kill her husband.

     In his attempt to renovate his client car insurance, Mr Huff found himself having a conversation with Mrs. Nirdlinger. A women that the last thing which can be a worry for her was to talk about insurances. Mr Huff did not have another option but to continue with the dialogue. While his mind was poundering how he could  use her to Mr. Nirdlinger renew the coverage, he realized something that he did not see before. James M. Cain relates in his novel "Under those blue pajamas was a shape to set a man nuts,...I started explaining the highs ethics of the insurance business I didn't exactly know" (6). Mr Huff realized that Mrs. Nirdlinger was the type of women who had the power to make importants decisions.
Like "Primary Characteristics and Conventions of Film Noir: Themes and Styles" author describes "The fales in film noir were either of two types (or archetypes) - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femme fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate." (Tim Dirks). Those features are simple to see in one hand with Miss Lola's character:

• In the scene when Mr. Huff gave a ride to Miss Lola "I set down there, and after she got out, she reached out her hand, and took mine, and thanked me, her eyes shining like stars" (27) Loving Women
• Another one is when Walter gave a loan on her boyfriend's car "You're awfully nice to me. I don't know why I keep bothering you about things" "That's all right, Miss Mirdlinger, I'm glad--" and her sweet answer was "You can call me Lola, if you want to" (30) Dutiful

And in the other hand with Mrs. Nirdlinger's character:

• "But all of a sudden she looked at me, and I felt a chill creep straight up my back and into the roots of my hair. "Do you handle accident insurance?" (6)  Mysterious
• "Maybe that don't mean to you what it means to me...You get calls for other kinds,...but never for accident." (6-7) Manipulative
• "She had on a white sailor suit, with a blouse that pulled tight over her hips...I wasn't the only one who knew about that shape. She knew about herself, plenty." (10) Gorgeous
• "He's in the Petroleum Building, isn't he?...but most of the time he's in the oils fields. Plenty dangerous knocking around there" (12) Predatory and Manipulative
• "Mr. Huff, would it be possible for me to take out a policy for him, without bothering him about it at all" (12) Duplicitous, Tough-sweet and Manipulative

In addition, describing the females protagonist, that same article says "She would use her feminine wiles and come-hither sexuality to manipulate him into becoming the fall guy - often following a murder." ( ). Ansen, David, Tara and Weingarten illustrated femme fatale by "The women anbigous, sexi and treacherous." (68)

• "She looked at me...and her face was about six inches away. What I did do was put my arm around her,pull her face up against mine, and kiss her on the mouth, hard...She gave it a cold stare, and then she closed her eyes, pulled me to her, and kissed back." "I rumpled her hair, and then we both made some pleats in the blouse" (13)

• "You're going to drop a crown block on him." [Mr. Huff], "Well, you know, maybe not a crown block. But something. Something that's accidently-on-purpose going to fall on him, and then he'll be dead." (16)
• "He's not happy. He'll be better off-dead" (18)

Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumenton described femme fatale as "Frustrated and deviant, half predator, half prey, detached yet ensnared, she falls victim of her tramp...This new type of women, manipulative and hard bitten, has her envorimetn, ready to trade shots with anyone...

• "Maybe I'm crazy. But there's something in me that loves Death. I think myself as Death...I'm so beautiful, then. And sad.. Walter, this is the awful part. I know this is terrible. I tell myself it's terrible. But to me, it doesn't seem terrible." (18)

In the other hand Borde and Chaumenton give the characteristics of the male protagonist as "He is often enough masochistic, even self-immolating, one who makes his own trouble, whom may trow himself into fear, niether for the sake of justice nor from avarice but for simple out of morbid curiosity"

• When Mr. Huff told Mrs. Nirdlinger that aside from her, and money would be the other reason. She told him "You mean you would--betray your company, and help me do this, for me, and the money we could get out of it?" and his answer was "I mean just that" (18)

Moreover those authors mention how police is involve "If the police are featured, they are rotten"
and in the  Mr. Huff described them to Phyllis by "The police know who they are, of course. They round them up, give them the water cure--and then they're habeas corpused into court and turned loose. Those guys don't get convicted" (21)

Step by step                     rather than page by page
                                                                            

 we can see how this story-line convinces us that is a film noir form.