Barton Keyes quotes from Double Indemnity (1944)

Barton Keyes

The job I'm talking about takes brains and integrity. It takes more guts than there is in 50 salesmen. It's the hottest job in the business...Desk job? Is that all you can see in it? Just a hard chair to park your pants on from 9 to 5, huh? Just a pile of papers to shuffle around and five sharp pencils and a scratch pad to make figures on. Maybe a little doodling on the side. Well, that's not the way I look at it, Walter. To me, a claims man is a surgeon. That desk is an operating table. And those pencils are scalpels and bone chisels. And those papers are not just forms and statistics and claims for compensation, they're alive, they're packed with drama, with twisted hopes and crooked dreams. A claims man, Walter, is a doctor and a bloodhound...and a cop and a judge and a jury and a father confessor all in one. And you want to tell me you're not interested. You don't want to work with your brains. All you wanna work is with your finger on the doorbell, for a few bucks more a week.

Barton Keyes

You sure carried that ball. Only you fumbled on the goal line. Then you heaved an illegal forward pass and got thrown for a forty-yard loss. Now you can't pick yourself up because you haven't got a leg to stand on.

Barton Keyes

This Dietrichson business. It's murder, and murders don't come any neater. As fancy a piece of homicide as anybody ever ran into. Smart, tricky, almost perfect - but...I think Papa has it all figured out.

Barton Keyes

Murder is never perfect. It always comes apart sooner or later. When two people are involved, it's usually sooner. Now we know the Dietrichson dame is in it and the somebody else. Pretty soon, we'll know who that somebody else is. He'll show. He's got to show. Sometime, somewhere, they've got to meet. Their emotions are all kicked up. Whether it's love or hate, it doesn't matter. They can't keep away from each other. They may think it's twice as safe because there are two of them. But it isn't twice as safe. It's ten times twice as dangerous. They've committed a murder. And it's not like taking a trolley ride together where they can get off at different stops. They're stuck with each other and they've got to ride all the way to the end of the line and it's a one-way trip and the last stop is the cemetery.

Walter Neff

You're so darn conscientious you're driving yourself crazy. You wouldn't even say today's Tuesday unless you looked at the calendar. Then, you'd check to see if it was this year's or last year's calendar. Then you'd find out who'd printed the calendar and find out if their calendar checked with the World Almanac's Calendar.

Keyes

Every month, hundreds of claims come to this desk. Some of them are phonies. And I know which ones. How do I know? Because my little man tells me.

Garlopis

What little man?

Keyes

The little man in here. Every time one of these phonies comes along, it ties knots in my stomach. I can't eat.

Keyes

What kind of an outfit is this, anyway? Are we an insurance company or just a bunch of dim-witted amateurs to write a policy on a mug like that?

Neff

Now wait a minute, Keyes. I don't rate this beef. I clipped a note to that Garlopis application to have him thoroughly investigated before we accepted the risk.

Keyes

I know you did, Walter. I'm not beefing at you. It's the company. It's the way they do things. The way they don't do things. The way they'll write anything just to get it down on the sales sheet. And I'm the guy that has to sit here up to my neck in phony claims so they won't throw more money out the window than they take in at the door.

Neff

Okay, turn the record over and let's hear the other side.

Keyes

Well, I get darn sick of tryin' to pick up after a gang of fast-talking salesmen dumb enough to sell life insurance to a guy who sleeps in the same bed with four rattlesnakes. Walter, I've had twenty-six years of this and let me tell ya, I -

Neff

And you loved every minute of it, Keyes. You love it, only you worry about it too darn much, you and your little man.

Barton Keyes

Now that's enough out of you, Walter. Now get outta here before I throw my desk at you. [looks in his pocket for a match]

Walter Neff

I love you, too.

Walter Neff

I really did, too, you old crab. Always yelling your head off, always sore at everybody. You never fooled me with your song and dance, not for a second. I kinda always knew that behind all the cigar ashes on your vest was a heart as big as a house.

Barton Keyes

Have you made up your mind?

Jackson

Mr. Keyes, I'm a Medford man - Medford, Oregon. Up in Medford, we take our time making up our minds.

Barton Keyes

Well, we're not in Medford, we're in a hurry.

Barton Keyes

You know, you, uh, oughta take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business.

Edward S. Norton

Mister Keyes, I was RAISED in the insurance business.

Barton Keyes

Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by TYPES of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth. Suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from STEAMBOATS. But, Mr. Norton: Of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No, no soap, Mr. Norton. We're sunk, and we'll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.

Walter Neff

Know why you couldn't figure this one, Keyes? I'll tell ya. 'Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya.

Barton Keyes

Closer than that, Walter.

Walter Neff

I love you, too.

Keyes

How would you like a fifty dollar cut in salary?

Walter

How would I -- Do I laugh now, or wait until it gets funny?

Keyes

I'm serious, Walter. I've been talking to Norton. There's too much stuff piling up on my desk. Too much pressure on my nerves. I spend half the night walking up and down in my bed. I've got to have an assistant. I thought that you...

Walter

Me? Why pick on me?

Keyes

Because I've got a crazy idea you might be good at the job.

Walter

That's crazy all right. I'm a salesman.

Keyes

Yeah. A peddler, a glad-hander, a back-slapper. You're too good to be a salesman.

Walter

Nobody's too good to be a salesman.

Keyes

Phooey. All you guys do is ring doorbells and dish out a smooth line of monkey talk. What's bothering you is that fifty buck cut, isn't it?

Walter

That'd bother anybody.

Keyes

Look, Walter. The job I'm talking about takes brains and integrity. It takes more guts than there is in fifty salesman. It's the hottest job in the business.

Walter

It's still a desk job. I don't want a desk job.

Keyes

A desk job. Is that all you can see in it? Just a hard chair to park your pants on from nine to five. Just a pile of papers to shuffle around, and five sharp pencils and a scratch pad to make figures on, with maybe a little doodling on the side. That's not the way I see it, Walter. To me a claims man is a surgeon, and that desk is an operating table, and those pencils are scalpels and bone chisels. And those papers are not just forms and statistics and claims for compensation. They're alive, they're packed with drama, with twisted hopes and crooked dreams. A claims man, Walter, is a doctor and a bloodhound and a cop and a judge and a jury and a father confessor, all in one...And you want to tell me you're not interested. You don't want to work with your brains. All you want to work with is your finger on a doorbell. For a few bucks more a week.