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Barton Keyes The whole human race looks--a little bit crooked." Keyes to Neff in Double Indemnity
Directed by Billy Wilder, with a screenplay by Raymond Chandler based on the novel, the 1944 screen version is simply one of the all-time great film noirs. It garnered numerous Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (for Barbara Stanwyck) and Best Screenplay (for Raymond Chandler). Do I even have to tell the story? Insurance man and love-struck sap Fred MacMurray gets drawn into the web of femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck, who wants him to bump off her no-good husband, while Edward G. Robinson plays the hard-bitten insurance dick (and Fred's boss and friend) Barton Keyes, who smells a rat. Not to take anything from MacMurray or Stanwyck, but check out Robinson in the film -- he makes the most out of his limited time onscreen, delivering a powerful but nuanced performance, all the agony and pain of a man caught between duty and friendship and idealism and cynicism you could want. A bit more screen time, and Keyes could have been one of the all-time great cinematic eyes. And evidently, I'm not alone in that opinion. Due to the film's popularity, Robinson himself had high hopes of spinning off Keyes into a continuing character. So, in 1946, Cain wrote Nevada Moon, intending to sell it for serial publication to the slicks and from there to the movies. The story focussed on Keyes, but it failed to sell to either market so Cain tucked it away. Eventually, he dusted it off, reworked it (eliminating all references to Keyes and Double Indemnity), and sold it to Avon, who published it as a 1950 paperback original, re-titling it Jealous Woman. Black Lizard reprinted it in 1989 under that title, with Keyes once again, if not the central character, at least very much the dominant force in it, and re-insterting the jettisoned references to Double Indemnity. Keyes is now head of the claims department of the General Pan-Pacific of California Life Insurance Company, with a rep for sniffing out any "twisted, cock-eyed, queer angle that could be found on (a claim), and about two dozen of his own that nobody else could find in it, but that he had to see just to show what a genius he was at it." Meanwhile, in 1973, ABC television had taken another crack at Double Indemnity, airing a made-for-television flick starring Richard Crenna and Samantha Eggar and the treacherous lovebirds, and Lee J. Cobb as Keyes. It's interesting remake for fans of the original, but it's hardly essential viewing, and was pretty much forgotten until it was brought back to life as a bonus feature on the long-awaited DVD release of the original 1944 classic. NOVELS
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Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to James Stephenson for the leads. | Home | Detectives A-L M-Z | Film | Radio | Television | Web Comics | Comics | FAQs | Remember, your comments, suggestions, corrections and contributions are always welcome.
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BARTON KEYES is the dogged, determined investigator for General Fidelity of California who puts it all together in 
