Character Introductions 004: Phyllis Dietrichson
Double Indemnity opens with Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff stumbling into his office, drenched in sweat and guilt.
Walter confesses (to his ‘best friend’ through a dictaphone) that he murdered a man and is now dying, all because of a woman. The film then flashes back to months earlier, where he’s driving up to a home to talk to Mrs. Dietrichson.
If you’re going to set someone up as a murdering seductress who drives a man to his death right before the audience meets her, you better deliver on those sexy and deathly vibes when we do meet her.
Deliver Billy Wilder does, actually twice in as many minutes; the first time when Walter sees Phyllis from a distance, and again moments later when she descends to meet him at his level; we’ll look at each of those moments in isolation.
Meeting The First
The first time Walter and we see Phyllis, she’s far above him, which doesn’t just allow for a classic “he’s looking up at her, she’s looking down at him” shot-reverse-shot, but because she’s in a towel (her excuse being she was sunbathing), there’s a tiny thrill we may see something illicit.
Three specific touches in staging and wardrobe help emphasise her power and personality:
using the railing to hide some of her at the start
the white towel wrapped around her
the white / black division of the wall / hallway behind her
Meeting the Second
Walter goes into the living room and pokes around while waiting; a few moments later (while he’s fully with in the jail-bar-esque slatted shadows cast by the window shutters, no less) Phyllis descends the stairs in her second introduction.
Walter’s look ‘leads’ the edit into a shot of white shoes and bare ankles, tracking up her calves as she comes downstairs. (A mere two years later, Lana Turner would get a similar white-clothed ‘feet to head’ intro shot.)
Hiding Phyllis’s face this way may seem superfluous since we’ve already seen it (and in closeups Walter wouldn’t have been privvy to), but because
she’s been clearly established as high above
Walter’s mental monologue reminds us he feels the stair rail as a physical barrier
this is about Walter’s anticipation, lust, and desire to confirm if his imagination of her face matches what he thought he saw from further away
Wilder gets away with lingering on her descent.
Whew, what a descent, not merely teasing the audience with the full revelation of the film’s star, but telling us what Walter’s thinking about, which is most certainly not the insurance policies he’s meant to be selling.
As Phyllis reaches the bottom of the stairs, she’s just finishing buttoning her white top; that the shot is continuous here, pulling out from a closeup to a wide, clearly implies she was completely undone when she started her descent. In other words she could have finished dressing before she came down, and though the exact details are left to our (and Walter’s) imagination, this is a power move.
Like showing up fully covered but only in a towel, Phyllis is flaunting herself and what she has to offer (sex, death), while being able to claim chastity.
All this ties in to what we know from the opening scene: she’s about to lead Walter into some dark places under a wickedly beautiful guise.
Summary
There’s telling, and there’s showing, but when a film tells us something about a character before it shows them, it’s upped the pressure on their introduction.
Stanwyck’s portrayal of Phyllis Dietrichson is superb, but choice of shots can greatly enhance the audience’s perception of the character. It’s unlikely we would remember the character as so iconic and impactful without the way she’s shot, and what that tells us immediately on meeting her.