Runaway car (symbol)
The film opens with a symbolic act that reveals the motivations its main character. A car speeds through a red light signal, a symbolic rendering of the failure of logic and rational consideration to put the brakes on impulse. It also foreshadows Phyllis's remark that Walter is "going about ninety," when he initially flirts with her.
Anklet (symbol)
When the audience—and Walter—meet Phyllis for the first time, she is wearing nothing but a towel. Before coming down the stairs to actually meet Walter, she gets dressed. On the way down those stairs the camera focuses on her legs, revealing her shoes and an anklet. The symbol of Mrs. Dietrichson’s well-earned iconic stature as a temptress who easily seduces Mr. Neff into helping her kill her husband is not the towel wrapped around her most private and sexually suggestive body parts, but that bracelet around her ankle. Many women in the 1940s wrapped themselves in a towel after a sunbath; the number who ever wore an anklet is a considerably smaller percentage of the population. Which may be why Walter brings up that anklet about five times within just a few minutes. He knows.
The Supermarket (symbol)
Double Indemnity may well be the only movie in history where two cold-blooded killers meet to map out their plans to avoid getting caught while inside a grocery store in the middle of the day. No abandoned garage after dark and no long drive into the desert for these two. This most illustrative symbol of middle class consumerism drives home the underlying narrative reality that the murder of Mr. Dietrichson was not a crime of passion, but ultimately a transactional murder, driven by a calculated desire for money. Neither are of these killers are professional nor psychopaths; they can cold-bloodedly carry out a murder one day and shop for groceries the next.
Dictaphone (symbol)
The strange device that looks both antiquated and futuristic today into which Walter records his confession is called a Dictaphone. It was a popular device in offices across the country at the time for recording memos and speeches and various other information that might be confidential or, when a secretary who could write shorthand was not available. The Dictaphone further encourages the view that the murder was entirely a business deal and that Walter was only fooling himself when he imagined there was any real passion behind it.
Crutches (symbol)
We don’t see much of the victim of the murder at the heart of Double Indemnity. The most striking thing about him is his appearance in silhouette and on crutches in the opening titles, and at this point we don’t even know who Mr. Dietrichson is or his role in the plot. But those crutches linger in the mind. After the murder, they will be transferred to Walter as he plays the part of the dead man in order to make the murder look like a fall off a train. It is the transfer of the crutches from husband to lover that endows them with symbolism. Crutches are a powerful symbol of weakness, and when used by a man in this context carry the extra metaphorical meaning of emasculation or impotence, the need for some external phallic object on which to rely.
