Rotten to the Heart, Baby

[Question 5]

PHYLLIS

We're both rotten.

NEFF

Only you're a little more rotten.

Phyllis Dietrichson stands looking down. She is in her early thirties. She holds a large bath-towel around her very appetizing torso, down to about two inches above her knees. She wears no stockings, no nothing. On her feet a pair of high-heeled bedroom slippers with pom-poms. On her left ankle a gold anklet.

Already, in this narration from Walter Neff, Barbara Stanwyck's character is portrayed as a seductive, alluring woman. She is the wife of one Mr. Neff's clients, but that does not stop her from flirting with him basically the instant he walks in the door. She is a troubled, shifty woman that wants her husband dead, and is unhappy with his daughter too. She manipulates Fred MacMurray's character by throwing her womanly charm at him any chance she could. She also pulls on his heart strings when she says, "Walter, I don't want to kill him. I never did. Not even when he gets drunk and slaps my face."

She is not a likable character, in that she makes the viewers feel uneasy by her wild nature and devious behavior. She is seen as immoral with her lust for murder, and also a little crazy with that insane look in her eye. She is always shot at an angle from the side, rarely head on, giving the illusion of watching from the outside, never really understanding her motive or true self. The only times she is filmed head on is when she is scheming with that crazy look in her eye, or when she is trying to be seductive to Mr. Neff.

She is surrounded by a fuzzy light when she is meant to look seductive and appealing. When she is planning murder or revealing a dark and wicked side of her, the lighting is either dark or dim,  displaying her secretive persona.

Displaying this woman lead as a deceitful and seductive counterpart to a successful and simply "misguided" man could expose a public idea of how women were viewed as a whole in the 1940s. They could be thought of as the continuation of Eve, the woman who deceived her husband into eating the forbidden fruit. They could be seen as beautiful, but deadly. They could be seen as insecure and needy, while bold and ill-natured. Men were rotten, perhaps women were seen as "a little more rotten" as perceived by the oh-so-misguided Mr. Neff. Truth be told, it was Neff's lust for money and this woman that led to his helping her, but hey, who can say no to a person wearing a pretty anklet? Right?….