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Well, what would Phyllis' story be? What is the story that is not articulated in the film? Did she have a bad childhood, scorned by men, poor--where did she come from? Are these questions answered by Cain's book?  We learn she was a nurse, so she must have had some nursing classes.   Diificult to imagine her wearing a nurse's uniform! Brian dePalma's "Femme Fatale" seems to provide more details about this archetype--who is seen watching Phyllis Dietrichson on TV.
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From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Richard Armstrong
To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2003 12:47 PM
Subject: Unreliable Narrators

Someone mentioned that Phyllis Dietrichson would have had a different story to tell if she had had her way in Double Indemnity. I agree. It would have changed the course of film noir! As an experiment, I tried to tell her story in my book on Wilder (McFarland, 2000). And I still believe the film does offer some space for a fresh reading. I was fed up with how misogynistic that film, and much other Wilder, is. My reading gained considerable impetus from Ruth Prigozy's 1984 piece for Literature/Film Quarterly. Both of us were doubtless inspired by 70s books like E. Ann Kaplan's Women in Film Noir.

Another unreliably narrated Wilder film is Witness for the Prosecution, which expends a considerable amount of breath demonizing Phyllis' namesake Marlene Dietrich, before letting the slimy Tyrone Power character take the fall.
Richard