@DRDMovieMusings said:

"Walter Neff" is the tragic protagonist of one of the greatest film noir movies from one of the greatest movie directors of all time - Double Indemnity.

Why choose to name this particularly vile character with that name?

It's not as though director George Miller is a stranger in Hollywood, or not a deft director in his own right. Surely, he would know the history of this character name.

And, yeah, people have the same name. It's not inconceivable that two characters in movie history could have the same name...but, that's more likely with a "John Smith" or a "Bob Brown" than "Walter Neff." I mean, could you watch a movie with a character named "Michael Corleone" who is not The Godfather (unless, within the movie, the character's parents were huge fans of the Godfather and named their kid in honor).

I'll admit, there are bigger fish to fry in the world of movie-making, this really isn't the end of the world. But it still bugs me.

In John Updike's novel "The Witches of Eastwick (1984)" the character was named Raymond Neff. He was a music teacher and sleeping with Jane. I don't know if Updike combined the first name of Raymond Chandler with the last name of the character Walter Neff from the movie "Double Indemnity (1944)".

Michael Cristofer did use the name Raymond Neff in an earlier script, but it was changed to Walter Neff.

Perhaps the name Walter Neff is now used to mean 'adulterer'.

By the way, there seems to always be name changes between book and film. For example in the novel "Double Indemnity (1943)" by James M. Cain, the character's name is Walter Huff. In the moviescript it was first changed to Walter Ness, and later - for legal reasons - to Walter Neff.

@wonder2wonder said:

@DRDMovieMusings said:

"Walter Neff" is the tragic protagonist of one of the greatest film noir movies from one of the greatest movie directors of all time - Double Indemnity.

Why choose to name this particularly vile character with that name?

It's not as though director George Miller is a stranger in Hollywood, or not a deft director in his own right. Surely, he would know the history of this character name.

And, yeah, people have the same name. It's not inconceivable that two characters in movie history could have the same name...but, that's more likely with a "John Smith" or a "Bob Brown" than "Walter Neff." I mean, could you watch a movie with a character named "Michael Corleone" who is not The Godfather (unless, within the movie, the character's parents were huge fans of the Godfather and named their kid in honor).

I'll admit, there are bigger fish to fry in the world of movie-making, this really isn't the end of the world. But it still bugs me.

In John Updike's novel "The Witches of Eastwick (1984)" the character was named Raymond Neff. He was a music teacher and sleeping with Jane. I don't know if Updike combined the first name of Raymond Chandler with the last name of the character Walter Neff from the movie "Double Indemnity (1944)".

Michael Cristofer did use the name Raymond Neff in an earlier script, but it was changed to Walter Neff.

Perhaps the name Walter Neff is now used to mean 'adulterer'.

By the way, there seems to always be name changes between book and film. For example in the novel "Double Indemnity (1943)" by James M. Cain, the character's name is Walter Huff. In the moviescript it was first changed to Walter Ness, and later - for legal reasons - to Walter Neff.

Interesting, thank you!

Writers have a thing about character names. I vaguely remember something about the name "Drake/Sheldrake" that Bill Wilder commented on when naming Fred MacMurray's character in (not Double Indemnity, but) The Apartment. That name is often used to depict evil or, at least, be the lead antagonist, as in Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, or the original vampire, Drake, in Blade: Trinity. Drake loosely means "dragon" or "snake", so has come down through language and time as such...but I digress.

So, yeah, apparently "Walter Neff" is now a coded character name indicating to we the audience what kind of character it is.