Apology for Murder (1945)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Sam Newfield

Writers:

Fred Myton (screenplay)
Fred Myton (story)

Release Date:

27 September 1945 (USA)

Genre:

Short | Crime | Drama | Film-Noir

Tagline:

She Could Make A Man Do Anything... Even Murder!

Plot:

Reporter Kenny Blake (Hugh Beaumont) falls in love with scheming Toni Kirkland (Ann Savage) not knowing...

Plot Keywords:

Murder

Cast

Ann Savage	...	Toni Kirkland
Hugh Beaumont	...	Kenny Blake
Russell Hicks	...	Harvey Kirkland
Charles D. Brown	...	Ward McGee
Pierre Watkin	...	Craig Jordan
Sarah Padden	...	Maggie, the Janitress
Norman Willis	...	Allen Webb
Eva Novak	...	Maid
Budd Buster	...	Jed, the Caretaker
George Sherwood	...	Lt. Edwards
Wheaton Chambers	...	Minister
Arch Hall Sr.	...	Paul (as Archie Hall)
Elizabeth Valentine	...	Mrs. Harper, Rancher's Wife
Henry Hall	...	Warden

Also Known As:

Murder with Apology (USA) (TV title)
Single Indemnity (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

67 min | USA:24 min (TV)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Producers Releasing Corporation

Trivia:

According to director Edgar G. Ulmer, who was working at PRC at the time this film was made, it was originally to be called "Single Indemnity" (it was a virtual copy of the Fred MacMurray/Barbara Stanwyck film Double Indemnity (1944) of a short time earlier). The producers of "Double Indemnity" got wind of it and threatened legal action. PRC then changed the title to "Apology for Murder".

Only Ann Savage survives blatant, el-cheapo knockoff of Double Indemnity

Apology For Murder's chief claim to fame lies in its being an utterly shameless Poverty-Row knockoff of Paramount's big hit of the year before (at least within Industry circles), Double Indemnity. Movies have always tried to hitch their hopes on emulating earlier successes, no matter how fast or loose (and continue to do so). But this programmer from PRC steals so blatantly, not even bothering to wipe away its fingerprints, that it becomes fascinating in its own right.

Then of course it casts, in the Barbara Stanwyck role of the duplicitous siren, Ann Savage (the shrew in Detour), who remains the sole reason for giving it a look.

And the first look we get of Savage is of the provocatively arched instep she dandles, framed in an ankle-strapped pump, while otherwise she stays shrouded in the recesses of a wing chair. She's seated in the office of her wealthy older husband, who has granted an interview to young reporter Hugh Beaumont (the Fred MacMurray part of the lust-crazed stooge; Beaumont takes to it as a sitting duck to water). When, with a pouty mouth and a frizzy coif that makes her an eerie preview of Bette Midler, Savage gives Beaumont the Big Eye, he tumbles hard.

From then on we retrace the familiar road from adultery to murder to betrayal, its details firmly etched in memory by Billy Wilder's inexpressibly superior film. There's Savage barely flinching at the cold-blooded murder. There's the eye-witness who fails to identify Beaumont even when standing next to him. Instead of ulcer-ridden insurance investigator Edward G. Robinson, there's Beaumont's editor with his gut-instinct that something's not right. There's the lethal falling-out of the killers (surprisingly, not to the strains of Tangerine). In place of a dictaphone recording the deathbed confession, there's a typewriter in the newsroom – and, as in Double Indemnity, Beaumont's last cigarette gets lighted by his perplexed but still doting editor.

Apology For Murder is instructive as a glimpse into the ethics and economics of the movie business in the mid-1940s, but merits attention by preserving one of the rare appearances of the pitifully underused and unappreciated Ann Savage. Hers was one of the great camera faces.