Apology for Murder

Hugh Beaumont and Fred MacMurray...Migrated to TV to Play "Wonderful", Highly Successful and Enduring TV-Dads on "Leave it to Beaver" and "My Three Sons"...

But Both Played the Lead in Almost Identical Movies, One an Academy Award Multi-Nominee and Top-10 Film-Noir,

the Other a PRC (Producers Releasing Co..."Pretty Rotten Crap..."Poverty Row Cinema") Quickie.

"Apology" has All the Pitfalls and Baggage that Accompany Movies Made on the Cheap...60 min. Run-Time...Mostly One-Takes, and Not a Whole-Lotta-Time or Money to Make a Better Movie.

But the Low-Rent Studios "Reason to Be" was Making "Watchable Movies for the Bottom-End of a Double-Bill while Making a Dollar-Bill.

Providing Work for Out-of-Work Folks that Worked in the Movies,

and through No Fault, but Resources, Sacrificial Lambs for "No-Shame" Ghouls to Pick the Bones Clean Laughing at 'Primitive Art" for Not Being "Legitimate" Art...Bullies All.

But "Apology for Murder" Makes No Apologies and "Respects" the Billy Wilder Film..."Imitation is the Greatest Form of Flattery"...

Anne Savage will Never Apologize for NOT being Barbara Stanwyck,

Her On-Screen Persona is Something to be Proud. If there Ever was an Actress "Born" to Play "Femme-Fatales", She's the One.

Hugh Beaumont is Fine "Playing the Sap", and the Ending is a Violent and Peaceful Wrap where He Delivers and then Some.

Ignore the "Deja Vu" when it Surfaces in this "Homage" and Enjoy.

If "B-Movies" Didn't Exist...There would be No "A-Movies".

Definitely...

Worth a Watch.

Fun, fast-paced imitation of DOUBLE INDEMNITY, with Hugh Beaumont in the Fred MacMurray role and Ann Savage in the Barbara Stanwyck part. Savage does as good a job at being nasty as she did in DETOUR and Beaumont is fine, too. Prolific PRC director Sam Newfield keeps it moving and keeps it very entertaining. This is very hard to see, but highly worthwhile. Supposedly Paramount sued PRC to keep this out of theaters because it was far too similar to DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Too bad because it's good in its own right.

"Apology for Murder" is a very good film with one problem...the plot is a complete ripoff of "Double Indemnity". In far too many ways does this PRC film mirror the Paramount film from the previous year.

The movie stars Hugh Beaumont as a murderer. Although he was such an incredibly nice ordinary guy as the father on "Leave it to Beaver", he often played scum-bags or hardboiled cops in films. In this film, he plays a reporter named Kenny who visits the elderly Harvey Kirkland to try to get a story. He meets a young lady named Toni (Ann Savage) and assumes it's Kirkland's daughter--but it's his young and conniving wife. She feigns interest in Kenny...all to try to get him to help murder her husband. But when he does the dirty deed, he learns she's already picked out another boyfriend and that someone else is being blamed for the husband's murder!

This story has so much from the previous film...and it's obvious they were copying. But even with this, Beaumont is still excellent and the super-cheap film still exudes a nice, noirish atmosphere. Totally unoriginal...but still worth your time.

I too have seen this rather bad production and had a discussion with Anne Savage after. The film was shut down due to the larger, Paramount Pictures, who had just released Double Indemnity a year earlier. The story by James M Cain was actually based on a true story from the thirties. Appology was based on the actual story and not the Cain novel. Paramount wanted to sue the PRC studio because it felt that they stolen the story. This would have crippled the already small production house. And yes, while Double Indemnity is a much better movie, Apology is true to the real life story.

The minor Hollywood studios and companies usually waited a decent interval---say two or three years--- before they made their own version of a major company film, but good old PRC had an early-day version of the TV mentality that says if it was good last week, we'll make it again tomorrow. Rigor mortis hadn't set in on Fred MacMurray's "Double Indemnity" character before PRC had their own grind-house version playing. Nothing to it; just change the insurance salesman and company cop to a reporter and his editor; cast Ann Savage (who else?) in Barbara Stanwyck's scheming, double-dealing wife role and tell the exhibitors it will be ready in two weeks. And who needs Billy Wilder and James M. Cain when they have Sam Newfield and Fred Myton? Not any of us PRC-schlock lovers for certain. The super market scene-lovers could be disappointed.