uities of film noir, and then continued in the new uncertainties of the Cold War period, especially in the years immediately after World War II when American society was straining to recover from the war while also trying to adapt to the new line-up of international friends and enemies. This also explains why the style became so pervasive, since it was speaking to the national psyche that existed at the time, and that psyche did not kick in only for one genre of film but was "in the air," as it were.
Walter Neff is the protagonist in Double Indemnity (1944), an insurance salesman who succumbs to the lure of the wife of a client and becomes enmeshed in a murder plot for insurance money. Phyllis Dietrich is used as a sexual lure from the moment she descends the staircase, and the first thing noted about her is the bracelet around her ankl
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