Double Indemnity
written by Billy Wilder & Raymond Chandler, from the novel by James M. Cain
Keyes: You know, you, uh, ought to take a look at the statistics on suicide sometime. You might learn a little something about the insurance business...Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why, they've got 10 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 poisons, 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 do you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? 15 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.
Kudos and much thanks go to Nicholas for this monologue, it is very much appreciated.