Double Indemnity And Body Heat Comparison

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In the film noirs Double Indemnity (1944) and Body Heat (1981), two men commit adultery as they are convinced by narcissistic, money hungry, manipulating women who have premeditated the murders of their spouses. Even though both men are in different professions, Walter being an insurance man and Ned being a lawyer, they are proven to be valuable assets to the femme fatales of the films Phyllis and Matty. Both noir women are sexually promiscuous, unmistakably beautiful and more than willing to protect their freedoms at any cost. In the same way that Walter risks his freedom and friendships for corrupted lust, Ned’s world is flipped around as he finds out that Matty is not exactly who she claims to be. Along with many differences that may set these two movies apart, there is the underlying theme of separating the boring lives of these two middle-class men into the fictive world of illegal endeavors and sexual affairs. In Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity the first scene opens with the confession of the main protagonist, Walter, as he explains that he killed a man for a girl and money, both of which he did not get. From the first moment that Phyllis and Walter meet he cannot keep his eyes or mind off of her. Using …show more content…
Walter is seen pretending to be the husband of Phyllis, who is supposedly waiting to board a train. The beginning of their plan begins to unfold as he later gets off and transports the dead body onto the tracks. This dark scene is just as climatic as the murder scene in Body Heat, where Ned waits in a closet and wrestles with Matty’s husband until he is able to knock him unconscious with a wooden two by four. He also transports the body to a different place where he blows the building and the dead carcass up. It is a mistake made in both crimes that leads to the suspicion of murder. The identity impersonation in Body Heat is not revealed until the end of the movie and is a major mystery in the