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On
a dark Los Angeles night in July 1938, insurance agent Walter Neff is
bleeding from a gunshot wound and slips into his office at the Pacific All
Risk Insurance Co. Walter records his murder confession on the
dictaphone, addressing his boss and friend, Barton Keyes, a meticulous and
intuitive claims agent. Walter thinks back to May when it all started.
Walter visits an expensive Spanish-style house
in Los Feliz to follow up an automobile insurance renewal for Mr.
Dietrichson. He is immediately attracted to Dietrichson's wife
Phyllis, who first appears clad only in a towel. Walter flirts with
Phyllis, whose interest is piqued, nevertheless, she rebuffs him, and the
next day changes his appointment to meet with her husband.
When Walter arrives that day, he and Phyllis are
alone and she inquires about getting an accident policy for her husband
without his knowledge. Upset by her implications, Walter leaves, but
his expectation that he has not seen the last of Phyllis is fulfilled when
she appears at his apartment. Walter soon gives in to his longing and
kisses Phyllis, after which she reveals that she has been abused and
neglected by her husband. Phyllis admits to having fantasies of
killing Dietrichson, but his life insurance beneficiary is his mature
daughter Lola, who hates her. Walter is repulsed by, and at the same
time, strangely drawn to Phyllis's fantasy, and his thoughts linger on how
to accomplish an undetectable crime.
Agreeing to help Phyllis kill her husband,
Walter meets with Dietrichson and, in Lola's presence, tries to sell him
accident insurance. Dietrichson refuses the accident insurance, but
enrolls for auto insurance, and is unaware that Walter has given him an
accident insurance form to sign as well. Walter secretly advises
Phyllis to book a train for Dietrichson's business trip, as a double
indemnity clause in the policy will award her double the stated $50,000 if
Dietrichson dies from an unlikely cause, such as a train accident.
Phyllis and Walter begin to meet surreptitiously every morning in a local
market. Dietrichson breaks his leg just after the accident policy
comes through, and the lovers are delayed in carrying out their plan.
In mid-June, as Keyes offers to hire Walter as
his assistant, Phyllis telephones and informs Walter that Dietrichson is
leaving that night on the train. Walter turns down Keyes' offer and,
after leaving the office, calculates his every move to avoid future
suspicion, then hides in the Dietrichsons' car. After Phyllis uses a
prearranged signal, Walter sits up from the back seat and strangles
Dietrichson to death. Dressed as Dietrichson, Walter then boards the
train and heads for the observation car. Walter is dismayed to find
another passenger, Jackson, sitting on the deck but, when he leaves to get
Walter a cigar, Walter jumps off the back of the train. After leaving
Dietrichson's body on the tracks, Phyllis and Walter leave together in her
car.
The
police declare Dietrichson's death accidental, but Norton, the president of
All Risk, is reluctant to pay out the $100,000 and meets with Phyllis.
Phyllis pretends to be bereaved and is genuinely shocked at Norton's
suggestion of suicide. After she leaves, Walter is delighted when
Keyes assures Norton that he will have to pay out the claim.
At his apartment later that night, Walter is
surprised by a visit from Keyes, who has developed indigestion due to an
incongruity in the case: Dietrichson never filed a claim for his
broken leg, even though he had just purchased accident insurance, in
addition to which, the train was going so slowly that suicide is unlikely.
Keyes concludes that Dietrichson was ignorant of the policy, and he is
suspicious of Phyllis. A nervous Walter rushes Keyes out, as Phyllis
hides behind the door to escape notice.
The next day, Lola confides in Walter that she
suspects that Phyllis, who was her mother's nurse, killed her mother six
years earlier and now has done the same to her father. In order to
distract Lola, Walter spends the next few days with her, and learns that she
has broken up with her college drop-out boyfriend, Nino Zachette.
During this time, Keyes becomes convinced that Dietrichson was murdered, and
sends for Jackson. Jackson confirms that the man on the train does not
match photographs of Dietrichson, and Keyes subsequently has Phyllis
followed by detectives.
Walter
urges Phyllis not to sue for the claim, which is now being withheld, as
Keyes will oppose it, but she is determined to get the money, and insists
that the murder was all his doing. Walter is now suspicious of
Phyllis, as Lola has told him that Nino is seeing her stepmother, and Walter
thinks about killing her. Phyllis files suit for the insurance money,
and Keyes tells Walter that her partner-in-crime has shown himself.
Worried that Keyes is on to him, Walter listens
to Keyes's dictaphone and hears that Keyes suspects that Nino is Phyllis'
partner-in-crime, after which he arranges to meet with Phyllis late that
night. Unknown to Walter, Phyllis has prepared for his visit by hiding
a gun under a seat cushion. Walter confronts Phyllis and tells her
that he knows she has used him and that he intends to frame Nino for the
murder. Phyllis then shoots Walter, but is unable to kill him.
Admitting that she has never loved him, Phyllis now embraces him, and Walter
shoots her twice, killing her. As he leaves the house, Nino walks up,
and Walter urges him to go to Lola, who truly loves him. By 4:30 a.m.,
Walter finishes his confession as Keyes makes his presence known, having
been called by the janitor who noticed Walter trailing blood. Walter
walks out, intending to escape to the border, but collapses before he gets
to the elevator. Keyes, disappointed, nevertheless reveals his
affection for Walter, and Walter reciprocates, as Keyes lights Walter's
final cigarette. |
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