THE DUKE ON
DOUBLE INDEMNITY
DOUBLE INDEMNITY
So here I am, Keyes, yackin away into this funky ol’ speaker thing
from out the forties. Sittin in your office, lookin through your
shit, pullin out these porn-mags you got hidden away in there.
Fucking hell, Keyes. These broads are 80 if they’re a day. You’re a
sick motherfucker, Keyes, but that’s what I like about you.
So I guess you’re wondering what I make of it all, when it all boils
down to it, what thoughts I got running round the skull with regards
this here flick by the name of Double Indemnity. I’ll tell you Keyes,
but first I’m gonna give a little backstory, on account of I know you
love that sorta scene-setting bullshit.
“Always set the scene”, you told me one time, and I took note of
that, Keyes. Sure, I kicked you upside the face and threatened you
with a fishing knife, but deep inside I respected you. I always have
Keyes.
I sat down around 3 o’clock, just me and a cup of coffee and the
television. And also a few hookers. It was raining, Keyes, tapping
off the window like as if it were saying “Hey, let me the fuck in,
it's pissin down out here.”
The blinds were pulled just the way I like em, all moody and
mysterious, casting funky shadows all around the room.
Chicks dig funky shadows, Keyes. It gets em soaked, is what it does.
The movie started just as I hit play on the Digital DVD. Some folks
might see this as a coincidence. Some folks might see it as an act of
God. Truth be told, Keyes, I don’t know what I make of it, and I
didn't have the time to discuss it, since not only were two hookers
goin’ down on me at the time, but the credits were already rollin.
This Billy Wilder cat, Keyes. I’ve seen his name crop up a few times.
The Lost Weekend, Sunset Motherfucking Boulevard, The Apartment, this
cat’s been up to his knees in all of them. Let’s be honest here, he’s
no Kirsten Dunst, but he’s up there with the celluloid greats.
Probably one of the best Billy’s of all fucking time, Keyes, and you
know how many great Billy’s there’s been. Fucking dozens.
Remember Little Billy Morocco? He had two broken legs and still
crawled to his Momma’s bedside across town every morning for 43 years
just so as he could get some fresh bread to her tremblin hands. He
died tryin to save his Momma’s tombstone from a buncha no-good
hoodlums tryin ta sell the concrete for the price of a skag-pipe.
That Little Billy Morocco ain’t fit to wipe the shit from off of
Billy Wilder’s knuckles, Keyes.
Anyhow, shut your filthy face for ten minutes, how about? What I’m
getting at is something along the lines of this kinda shit right here;
Some times in the middle of the night a man gets to thinking. What
if, Keyes, what if this, what if that. What if a man just decided to
throw good sense and conscience to the wind and do something no jury
in the land would stand for, just for to get it on with a broad with
a really rather bizarre hair-style? What if he said “Fuck it up the
fucking hole, baby, I’m gonna kill your husband stone cold dead so as
we can collect the life insurance and take our pretty little hides
cross the border to Mexico or Holland or wherever it is we live next
to. Damn it, honey, I can’t look at that weird hair of yours for a
second longer without wanting to fling a motherfucker off of a train.
I want you to push that hair down my throat and let me piss it onto
your head afresh. That’s the kinda thoughts I’m thinking baby.”
You disgust me, Keyes.
Well I don’t know if you know or not, but that’s the kinda shit these
cats get up to in this Billy Wilder flick by the name of Double
Indemnity. This gal Phyllis, she’s a looker, see, even though she’s
got this rather disturbing hair-style that a man can’t help but stare
at. What’s up with that hair, you’d want to ask her, but you
wouldn't, cause you’re a polite kinda bastard, Keyes, that’s why the
ladies let you pop them for free sometimes.
I gotta tell you, Keyes. Sitting here, in this office, spilling my
shitty guts all over this tape-recorder thing, I can’t help but
wonder. I wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder, Keyes. What if I’d just said no?
What if I’d said “Ladies, I don’t care what you say, and I respect
your right to vote in a democratic society, but damn it baby, if I
put on this film by the name of Double Indemnity, chances are you’ll
just disappear into the fabric of time, or at least leave
unsatisfied. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a heavy head
and a toilet-full of bile-laced regret. Maybe I’ll think about how I
shoulda done you one more time just for old time’s sake. But I doubt
it.”
Because I gotta say, Keyes, chances are the only thing I’ll be
thinking is something along the lines of “Holy shit, what a fucking
incredible motion-flick that Double Indemnity was.”
I’m sure you remember Body Heat, Keyes, in fact I know you do. I
remember you said about how it was a value for money rental, unlike
Fisting Miss Daisy or Sit On My Face 2, on account of once you were
done playing with yourself you still had a great yarn to sit through
whilst you gathered your composure. Unlike Slutty Housewives 5, you
didn’t turn it off after three minutes and then take it back to the
store, all the while weeping with utter self-loathing.
You said that, really, the plot about the betrayal and the illicit
affairs was probably just as good as the scenes were Kathleen Turner
had some sexes. Well, Kathleen Turner isn’t in Double Indemnity. Come
on Keyes, she wasn’t even born, most likely. But I think this might
be a remake of Body Heat. Obviously it’s the forties so they can’t
shaft one another up the exit, but it bears a lot of similarities.
Except that Double Indemnity is about 89% better in almost all
conceivable areas. Let me tell you this for nothing, Keyes, and take
note, son. This thing is a motherfucking masterclass in how to be a
hard-boiled wise-cracking motherfucker. The dialogue, Keyes, it’s
like two terriers fightin over the last sausage in the tray. Just
slices through a fella, back and fourth, back and fourth, bam bam
bam. It’s the kinda shit gets a man giddy just to hear. Kinda shit a
man wants to note down in case he spies any attractive ladies on the
way home who maybe need a warm bed for the night and a finger on a
trigger.
Let’s be honest, Keyes, those wank jokes weren’t gettin us no damn
place.
And it’s so bleak, Keyes, so suffocatingly bleak. Let’s take a little
minute for a flashback within the flashback, if you don’t mind, and
maybe take a note of how World War 2 was just about to end in a wave
of blood and concrete. Maybe note those fellas wandering home after
all that time spent gettin bits blown off and blowin bits off of
other folks. The home they return to, Keyes, it ain’t the home they
left.
These folks should be coming back secure, content, with a future
mapped out ahead a them. Instead, they don’t know where to go, Keyes,
they don’t know what lies around the next corner, or if it even is a
corner, or maybe just a slight bend in this shitty ol’ road headed
for shitsville.
And look at these womenfolk, Keyes, would you just look at them?
Whilst these fellas were away, the women had to pick up tools and
keep the damn country runnin. These ladies realised they can do these
things just as well as a man can, and they kinda like the green they
get for it, too.
A man doesn’t know his place anymore, Keyes. Masculinity? Well just
what the hell is that, anyhow, when it all boils down?
So this motherfucker runnin round in Double Indemnity, he exists in
this bizarre, nightmarish distortion of America, Keyes. The womenfolk
aren’t to be trusted anymore. A man’s plans end up falling feckless
at his feet begging for a bullet just for to ease the pain of falling
so damn far at such a rate.
A man does desperate things. Maybe he arranges for to have a woman’s
husband killed so as he and the little lady can collect the green and
go skinny-dippin in the rivers of opportunity. But those rivers are
cold as all hell, Keyes, and you don’t watch, next thing you know a
giant blob-beast of some kind is gonna swallow half your fucking guts.
I know you saw Creepshow 2, Keyes. I know you know how inhospitable
those rivers can be.
It’s just gone 4.30, Keyes. I’m figuring you’ll just be waking up
about now. What’s goin on in that useless head of yours, anyhow?
Maybe you’re thinking about how you shit yourself in the taxi on the
way home last night. Maybe you’re wishing you’d just done it, just
jumped off of that balcony when you had the chance. You were thinking
back, Keyes, thinking to that bit in It when John Ritter was looking
over just such a balcony, and he had a motherfucking Oscar, Keyes.
What do you have? You got nothing. Worse than nothing, cause one time
you had something, and you know what something feels like.
So I’m thinkin about this Double Indemnity carry-on, thinkin about
all the theories flung in its direction over time.
I had a gas with a fella in a bar one night, Keyes, this fella by the
name of Chandler. He was sippin at his whiskey, I was mullin over
this dame I’d just left home on 42nd. One thing led to another and
before long the topic had turned to film theory. I talked about
Kirsten Dunst, he talked about Almodovar, I told him to shove
Almodovar up his asshole and leave room for whatever other crap he
was gonna fling out his face.
Anyhow, he starts tellin me all about how Double Indemnity is a film
filled to the back teeth with queer subtext. He tells me all about
how two of the main characters are obviously bummin one another up
the bumhole just cause one of em keeps tellin the other how much he
loves him. He tells me how the lady in the piece don’t mean a damn
thing, certainly not to the protagonist, and what he really wants is
to get on his knees and have the other fella shove his sex-limb
someplace rotten.
I don’t know what happened to Chandler, although I do recall fisting
him for a time.
So I guess all I’m saying is I don’t see this Queer Subtext, but
chances are it’s there. All I saw was a man displaying masculine
affection towards another. Just cause a man says he loves another man
don’t make him gay. Just cause a man touches himself whilst imagining
other men touching him don’t mean a damn thing. Just cause a man
sneaks out his marital bed in the middle of the night for to get done
left and right by a dancer named Marco, don’t add up to a sum worth
countin.
But there’s so much goin on in Double Indemnity, Keyes, I doubt I’ll
ever work it all out. It’s all about America, about the American
Dream, about the corruption that’s gone and gotten in there all a
sudden. It’s about insecurity, about masculinity, about femininity,
about just what the sweet bejeesus those kinda fanciful terms might
mean in this day and age, anyhow?
So that’s it Keyes. I’m headed for the border and I ain’t ever coming
back this way. I just want you to know I think your fucking shirts
are disgusting. I just want you to know I wanna puke over your face
every time I have to look at it, just stand there and lean forward
and puke salty orange puke all over your pukey old jaws. I love you,
Keyes, always have.
Shut your face, also.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
from out the forties. Sittin in your office, lookin through your
shit, pullin out these porn-mags you got hidden away in there.
Fucking hell, Keyes. These broads are 80 if they’re a day. You’re a
sick motherfucker, Keyes, but that’s what I like about you.
So I guess you’re wondering what I make of it all, when it all boils
down to it, what thoughts I got running round the skull with regards
this here flick by the name of Double Indemnity. I’ll tell you Keyes,
but first I’m gonna give a little backstory, on account of I know you
love that sorta scene-setting bullshit.
“Always set the scene”, you told me one time, and I took note of
that, Keyes. Sure, I kicked you upside the face and threatened you
with a fishing knife, but deep inside I respected you. I always have
Keyes.
I sat down around 3 o’clock, just me and a cup of coffee and the
television. And also a few hookers. It was raining, Keyes, tapping
off the window like as if it were saying “Hey, let me the fuck in,
it's pissin down out here.”
The blinds were pulled just the way I like em, all moody and
mysterious, casting funky shadows all around the room.
Chicks dig funky shadows, Keyes. It gets em soaked, is what it does.
The movie started just as I hit play on the Digital DVD. Some folks
might see this as a coincidence. Some folks might see it as an act of
God. Truth be told, Keyes, I don’t know what I make of it, and I
didn't have the time to discuss it, since not only were two hookers
goin’ down on me at the time, but the credits were already rollin.
This Billy Wilder cat, Keyes. I’ve seen his name crop up a few times.
The Lost Weekend, Sunset Motherfucking Boulevard, The Apartment, this
cat’s been up to his knees in all of them. Let’s be honest here, he’s
no Kirsten Dunst, but he’s up there with the celluloid greats.
Probably one of the best Billy’s of all fucking time, Keyes, and you
know how many great Billy’s there’s been. Fucking dozens.
Remember Little Billy Morocco? He had two broken legs and still
crawled to his Momma’s bedside across town every morning for 43 years
just so as he could get some fresh bread to her tremblin hands. He
died tryin to save his Momma’s tombstone from a buncha no-good
hoodlums tryin ta sell the concrete for the price of a skag-pipe.
That Little Billy Morocco ain’t fit to wipe the shit from off of
Billy Wilder’s knuckles, Keyes.
Anyhow, shut your filthy face for ten minutes, how about? What I’m
getting at is something along the lines of this kinda shit right here;
Some times in the middle of the night a man gets to thinking. What
if, Keyes, what if this, what if that. What if a man just decided to
throw good sense and conscience to the wind and do something no jury
in the land would stand for, just for to get it on with a broad with
a really rather bizarre hair-style? What if he said “Fuck it up the
fucking hole, baby, I’m gonna kill your husband stone cold dead so as
we can collect the life insurance and take our pretty little hides
cross the border to Mexico or Holland or wherever it is we live next
to. Damn it, honey, I can’t look at that weird hair of yours for a
second longer without wanting to fling a motherfucker off of a train.
I want you to push that hair down my throat and let me piss it onto
your head afresh. That’s the kinda thoughts I’m thinking baby.”
You disgust me, Keyes.
Well I don’t know if you know or not, but that’s the kinda shit these
cats get up to in this Billy Wilder flick by the name of Double
Indemnity. This gal Phyllis, she’s a looker, see, even though she’s
got this rather disturbing hair-style that a man can’t help but stare
at. What’s up with that hair, you’d want to ask her, but you
wouldn't, cause you’re a polite kinda bastard, Keyes, that’s why the
ladies let you pop them for free sometimes.
I gotta tell you, Keyes. Sitting here, in this office, spilling my
shitty guts all over this tape-recorder thing, I can’t help but
wonder. I wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder, Keyes. What if I’d just said no?
What if I’d said “Ladies, I don’t care what you say, and I respect
your right to vote in a democratic society, but damn it baby, if I
put on this film by the name of Double Indemnity, chances are you’ll
just disappear into the fabric of time, or at least leave
unsatisfied. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a heavy head
and a toilet-full of bile-laced regret. Maybe I’ll think about how I
shoulda done you one more time just for old time’s sake. But I doubt
it.”
Because I gotta say, Keyes, chances are the only thing I’ll be
thinking is something along the lines of “Holy shit, what a fucking
incredible motion-flick that Double Indemnity was.”
I’m sure you remember Body Heat, Keyes, in fact I know you do. I
remember you said about how it was a value for money rental, unlike
Fisting Miss Daisy or Sit On My Face 2, on account of once you were
done playing with yourself you still had a great yarn to sit through
whilst you gathered your composure. Unlike Slutty Housewives 5, you
didn’t turn it off after three minutes and then take it back to the
store, all the while weeping with utter self-loathing.
You said that, really, the plot about the betrayal and the illicit
affairs was probably just as good as the scenes were Kathleen Turner
had some sexes. Well, Kathleen Turner isn’t in Double Indemnity. Come
on Keyes, she wasn’t even born, most likely. But I think this might
be a remake of Body Heat. Obviously it’s the forties so they can’t
shaft one another up the exit, but it bears a lot of similarities.
Except that Double Indemnity is about 89% better in almost all
conceivable areas. Let me tell you this for nothing, Keyes, and take
note, son. This thing is a motherfucking masterclass in how to be a
hard-boiled wise-cracking motherfucker. The dialogue, Keyes, it’s
like two terriers fightin over the last sausage in the tray. Just
slices through a fella, back and fourth, back and fourth, bam bam
bam. It’s the kinda shit gets a man giddy just to hear. Kinda shit a
man wants to note down in case he spies any attractive ladies on the
way home who maybe need a warm bed for the night and a finger on a
trigger.
Let’s be honest, Keyes, those wank jokes weren’t gettin us no damn
place.
And it’s so bleak, Keyes, so suffocatingly bleak. Let’s take a little
minute for a flashback within the flashback, if you don’t mind, and
maybe take a note of how World War 2 was just about to end in a wave
of blood and concrete. Maybe note those fellas wandering home after
all that time spent gettin bits blown off and blowin bits off of
other folks. The home they return to, Keyes, it ain’t the home they
left.
These folks should be coming back secure, content, with a future
mapped out ahead a them. Instead, they don’t know where to go, Keyes,
they don’t know what lies around the next corner, or if it even is a
corner, or maybe just a slight bend in this shitty ol’ road headed
for shitsville.
And look at these womenfolk, Keyes, would you just look at them?
Whilst these fellas were away, the women had to pick up tools and
keep the damn country runnin. These ladies realised they can do these
things just as well as a man can, and they kinda like the green they
get for it, too.
A man doesn’t know his place anymore, Keyes. Masculinity? Well just
what the hell is that, anyhow, when it all boils down?
So this motherfucker runnin round in Double Indemnity, he exists in
this bizarre, nightmarish distortion of America, Keyes. The womenfolk
aren’t to be trusted anymore. A man’s plans end up falling feckless
at his feet begging for a bullet just for to ease the pain of falling
so damn far at such a rate.
A man does desperate things. Maybe he arranges for to have a woman’s
husband killed so as he and the little lady can collect the green and
go skinny-dippin in the rivers of opportunity. But those rivers are
cold as all hell, Keyes, and you don’t watch, next thing you know a
giant blob-beast of some kind is gonna swallow half your fucking guts.
I know you saw Creepshow 2, Keyes. I know you know how inhospitable
those rivers can be.
It’s just gone 4.30, Keyes. I’m figuring you’ll just be waking up
about now. What’s goin on in that useless head of yours, anyhow?
Maybe you’re thinking about how you shit yourself in the taxi on the
way home last night. Maybe you’re wishing you’d just done it, just
jumped off of that balcony when you had the chance. You were thinking
back, Keyes, thinking to that bit in It when John Ritter was looking
over just such a balcony, and he had a motherfucking Oscar, Keyes.
What do you have? You got nothing. Worse than nothing, cause one time
you had something, and you know what something feels like.
So I’m thinkin about this Double Indemnity carry-on, thinkin about
all the theories flung in its direction over time.
I had a gas with a fella in a bar one night, Keyes, this fella by the
name of Chandler. He was sippin at his whiskey, I was mullin over
this dame I’d just left home on 42nd. One thing led to another and
before long the topic had turned to film theory. I talked about
Kirsten Dunst, he talked about Almodovar, I told him to shove
Almodovar up his asshole and leave room for whatever other crap he
was gonna fling out his face.
Anyhow, he starts tellin me all about how Double Indemnity is a film
filled to the back teeth with queer subtext. He tells me all about
how two of the main characters are obviously bummin one another up
the bumhole just cause one of em keeps tellin the other how much he
loves him. He tells me how the lady in the piece don’t mean a damn
thing, certainly not to the protagonist, and what he really wants is
to get on his knees and have the other fella shove his sex-limb
someplace rotten.
I don’t know what happened to Chandler, although I do recall fisting
him for a time.
So I guess all I’m saying is I don’t see this Queer Subtext, but
chances are it’s there. All I saw was a man displaying masculine
affection towards another. Just cause a man says he loves another man
don’t make him gay. Just cause a man touches himself whilst imagining
other men touching him don’t mean a damn thing. Just cause a man
sneaks out his marital bed in the middle of the night for to get done
left and right by a dancer named Marco, don’t add up to a sum worth
countin.
But there’s so much goin on in Double Indemnity, Keyes, I doubt I’ll
ever work it all out. It’s all about America, about the American
Dream, about the corruption that’s gone and gotten in there all a
sudden. It’s about insecurity, about masculinity, about femininity,
about just what the sweet bejeesus those kinda fanciful terms might
mean in this day and age, anyhow?
So that’s it Keyes. I’m headed for the border and I ain’t ever coming
back this way. I just want you to know I think your fucking shirts
are disgusting. I just want you to know I wanna puke over your face
every time I have to look at it, just stand there and lean forward
and puke salty orange puke all over your pukey old jaws. I love you,
Keyes, always have.
Shut your face, also.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
