The Wayward Woman

“The females in film noir are either of two types - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femme fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women” (primary characteristics of film noir handout). in the book Double Indemnity the women named Phyillis had a lot of these characteristics of the femme fatales that appears in the noir films. She seemed at first a very sweet trustworthy woman. But she was not. She was unloving, irresponsible, unreliable and manipulative. And that was just some of the things I saw in her. I feel that she is this way because her thoughts of killing her husband had been playing out in her head long before she met up with Huff. Then she talked as if she was going to let her husband know what huff wanted, but all alone saw an opening to do what she had planed. And she only wanted to do it for the money. Not because he had cheated, or was abusing her; you know the things that normal people think are maybe okay to have thoughts like that about. But only for her love of money was all that she could come up with. She said “ I haven’t any reason. He treats me as well as a man can treat a woman. I don’t love him, but he’s never done anything to me”. “yes god help me, I’m going to do it“.(Double Indemnity. By James M. Cain page:18) (phyillis) yes I know she was crying when she said these words but that didn’t change the fact that she wanted and plotted to kill her husband.