Film Noir is a movement born from the disillusionment of post-war Americans. The term was coined by French critics who, after not having had access to American films before World War II, were surprised by the "darkness" of post-war Hollywood cinema. Film noir did not offer the escapism that previous Hollywood films offered during the Great Depression, but instead confronted audiences with its signature anxiety-inducing style. The sets of these films were terribly dark, where light entered the rooms only through the tilt of the blinds above the windows, or not at all, and shadows loomed over the faces of the villains and heroes. The characters in film noir were predictable – the “proletarian tough guy” fought by the “femme fatale” – each an embodiment of corruption, vice and shabby morals (Benton). Themes of sexual aberration and crime were woven into narratives centered on murder and adultery. Presented in low-light and skewed angles, film noir was intended to psychologically disrupt and disorient viewers. The film Double Indemnity is a great example of film noir in that it achieves film noir's goal of unsettling its audience through its style, setting, characters, and themes. Directed by Billy Wilder and released in 1944, Double Indemnity was adapted from the short story of the same name by James M. Cain, an American hardboiled fiction novel. Fred MacMurry plays Walter Neff, an insurance salesman, and Barbara Stanwyck plays Phyllis Dietrichson, the scheming wife. Edward G. Robinson is Barton Keyes, Neff's boss, whose job is to detect fraudulent claims. The film's opening scenes set the tone: the silhouette of a man, limping on crutches, walks toward the audience and looms larger on the screen; ...... middle of paper ...... and, Neff ironically decides to trust him, providing him with the brute strength needed to carry out his feminine machinations. Phyllis is the dangerous lady, the spider woman who lures the hero into her web of lies. She's treated to a spectacle when she first meets Neff, clad only in a towel; she is seen from above, at the top of the stairs, the height of femininity and beauty. However, she is not the fragile creature she seems and she uses her sexuality to manipulate Neff into killing her husband. Typical of the women of noir, Phyllis embodies the monstrous feminine, whose hypersexuality is a tool for destroying the nuclear family and castrating the men she encounters. She dismantles the Dietrichsons from the inside, killing the mother to take her place, then her husband, and finally turns Zachetti against Lola, who is supposed to be like a daughter to her..