After both watching and reading the novel Double Indemnity I have to say that I feel that the movie version of the ending was much more appropriate for film noir. I say this because it was the typical guy fell for the femme fatale and by the end he had been shot and then dies. In the book there was this sense that the charaters were riding off into the sunset together. ( so to speak ) The movie just had more of what we are used to in terms of film noir. I belkieve that the book was in more detail. However I think that because of the times the movie version was limited in what they were and were not allowed to show on the big screen.
The appropriateness of the actor portrayals was an easy one for me. Fred MacMurray was definatley not the guy to have portrayed Walter Neff. He just seemed too nice of a guy to be that cunning of a character. At first I thought that my judgement was clouded because I remember him as the fun loving single dad that he played for years on the tv show My Three Sons. So I did take a step[ back and realized that he was just too nice of a guy. I feel that MacMurry's character was the same as in the book. But his demeanor as a person was just not in tune with book. I truly believe that this was a major miss on the casting department.
Now Barbars Stanwyck was right on the money as the femme fatale Phyllis. She has played many characters in both movies and in a tv series. However I think she was very believable in this role. I know that she played a horrible mean person in her role as in the Thornbirds. She just seemed to play these roles with such ease that she is very believable as the femme fatal that we all love to hate in these movies. This was definately right on the money as afar as getting the actress and the character right.
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