Apology for Murder

Apology for Murder

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Sam Newfield
Produced by Sigmund Neufeld
Screenplay by Fred Myton
Story by Fred Myton
Starring Ann Savage
Hugh Beaumont
Russell Hicks
Charles D. Brown
Music by Leo Erdody (uncredited)
Cinematography Jack Greenhalgh
Edited by Richard L. Van Enger
Production
company
Sigmund Neufeld Productions
Distributed by Producers Releasing Corporation
Release dates
  • September 27, 1945
Running time
67 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Apology for Murder is a 1945 American film noir directed by Sam Newfield, and starring Ann Savage, Hugh Beaumont, Russell Hicks and Charles D. Brown.[1]

The plot of Apology for Murder is a blatant rip-off of Double Indemnity which was released the previous year. The production company Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the B movie studios of Hollywood’s Poverty Row, wanted to take advantage of Double Indemnity's huge success and originally intended to call the film Single Indemnity. However, Paramount Pictures the production company of Double Indemnity, got wind of it and obtained an injunction. PRC then changed the title to Apology for Murder.[2]

Much acclaimed B movie director Edgar G. Ulmer, who was working at PRC at the time Apology for Murder was made, claimed during an interview in 1970 that he wrote the original Single Indemnity script for producer Sigmund Neufeld.[3] However, he erroneously believed that the film made from it was finally released under the title Blonde Ice, which is a totally different film produced by Film Classics.

Plot

Tough reporter Kenny Blake (Beaumont) falls in love with sultry Toni Kirkland (Savage) who is married to a much older man (Hicks). She seduces him to murder her husband. City editor Ward McKee (Brown), Kenny's boss and best friend, begins to pursue the tangled threads of the crime relentlessly and gradually closes the net on Kenny. In the end Tony and Kenny shoot each other. As he dies, Kenny types out his confession to the crime.

Cast

References

  1. Apology for Murder at the American Film Institute Catalog.
  2. Dixon, Wheeler. "Senses of Cinema". Retrieved September 27, 2013.
  3. Peter Bogdanovich Who The Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors, 1997. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-44706-7.

External links