I enjoyed reading this analysis of my favorite movies (Double Indemnity -- I haven't seen the other)

Thank you! I'm very glad.

I'll have to keep this in mind when I watch it next -- it's a perspective I hadn't considered before, but I don't think I was ever really sold on the fact that Phyllis was the sole villain.

I saw Double Indemnity for the first time in 2007 with no knowledge of the characters or the plot and it read very clearly to me as a mutual-venture murder; Dietrichson's death isn't the result of Phyllis' connivance and Walter's weakness, but the toxic combination of her need, his ego, and their amorality. Then I read a lot of criticism and now I'm involved in an ongoing quest with bookelfe, rushthatspeaks, and now jinian to discover whether the archetype of the femme fatale really exists in first-generation film noir or whether she's some anxious male projection of film critics. So far, we haven't found one who fits the classical bill. I don't think Walter is the greater villain of Double Indemnity, mind you, but he's the protagonist: we're in his words and his perspective and one of the reasons I enjoy the film so much is that Billy Wilder doesn't seem to have had any problem throwing his audience to an unreliable narrator and letting them extricate themselves from his spin. I also respect it for having a stone cold unsympathetic protagonist—I feel for Phyllis more than I do for Walter, because he has options and resources that she doesn't (for starters, he's a straight white male with a steady job). I should love to hear what you think when you've watched it again!