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.

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.

Supposedly, get this from IMDb: In 1951 RKO was to start a crime thriller called "The Sins of Sarah Ferry" about a courthouse clerk in Binghamton, NY, who falls herself falling in love with a beautiful liar who's accused of armed robbery and a hit-and-run charge involving a death. This project never materialized because the plot was considered too close to that of Double Indemnity (1944)

Well, gee, that didn't stop PRC studio from doing "Apology for Murder" which is identical to Double Indemnity except that this time, the easily-led murderer, played by Hugh Beaumont, is a newspaper reporter. He's talked into killing the husband of Ann Savage, who else. And his boss, like Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity, is hot on the trail of the killer. In this version, a man is convicted and sentenced to death for the murder.

Not much to say - it's a cheap version of the real thing. That Ann Savage was sure something.

I have to admit that I know nothing about Director Sam Newfield but, having watched this out and out ripoff of DOUBLE INDEMNITY, which came out in 1944, I am not likely to look for any more of his work because there is never a good reason to plagiarize, and that is what his studio and he did with this B pic.

I am amazed that no legal proceedings were started against the studio on the grounds of theft of intellectual property, plagiarism, and related charges.

It's a pity, because Ann Savage is quite convincing as the murderous merry widow who convinces naif Hugh Beaumont to murder her hubby so she can chalk up his fortune. Russell Hicks and Charlie Brown also deliver credible performances, though the fact that a newspaper editor should be allowed so much freedom to investigate does extend to snapping point your suspension of disbelief. Edward G Robinson as an insurance company investigator made far more sense in DOUBLE INDEMNITY.

The script deserves a fat zero, it is a blatant copy.