Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity, considered a member of the "film noir" movement of filmmaking, was composed by Miklos Rozsa. Though not a detective story, as many of the film noir movies are, it tells the story of an insurance man who gets involved with a gold-digging wife (the "dame") and helps her carry out her plot to kill her husband.

Typical of a film noir movie, Double Indemnity has one dark and pessimistic mood. The music reflects this mood with its one major prevailing theme throughout the movie. Though the melody was basically the same throughout, the timbre of the music changed to enhance the drama on screen. For instance, when Phyllis was supposed to meet Walter in his apartment and Keyes unexpectedly shows up before she arrives, the music intensifies reflecting the trouble that could occur if Keyes knows that Walter and Phyllis are secretly meeting.

The movie contains hardly any diegetic music. I only identified 2 instances when there was: the Hollywood Bowl symphony playing in the background, and the music from the window that Phyllis says is from a neighbor's house down the street.