Newspaper reporter Kenny Blake (Hugh Beaumont) of the Daily Tribune attempts to interview businessman Harvey Kirkland (Russell Hicks) about his planned merger with his old friend and rival, Craig Jordan (Pierre Watkin), only to immediately fall for the businessman's young, extravagant wife Toni Kirkland (Ann Savage), who he believes is his daughter.
Upon returning to the paper, Kenny is chastised by his editor, Ward McKee (Charles D. Brown), for his failure to get the interview and his overt interest in Toni. Later, Kenny and Toni begin having an affair, but the reporter is shocked to learn that Toni is Kirkland's wife. Unwilling to divorce Kirkland because of his refusal to give her an appropriate settlement, Toni asks Kenny to help her kill Kirkland. Kenny initially refuses, but she later convinces him by lying that her husband is now planning to divorce her using perjured testimony.
Kenny and Toni then plot to kill Kirkland during an upcoming trip to his mountain lodge. Toni telephones her husband, stating that her car has broken down on an isolated road near the lodge. When Kirkland comes to get her, Kenny kills the businessman, then the two lovers push Kirkland's car over a cliff in an attempt to make it look like an accident. As an ironic twist, Kenny is ordered by Ward to write a story about Kirkland's death, during which he learns that the police suspect murder, as the car's ignition key was off and it was not in gear. Jordan is later accused of the crime, as Jed (Budd Buster), Kirkland's caretaker, overheard Jordan threaten to kill his old friend during a heated argument.
After Jordan is convicted and sentenced to death, Ward decides to investigate the murder himself, and he questions Mrs. Harper (Elizabeth Valentine), a rancher's wife, who tells him that she saw a stranger on the road the day Kirkland died. Meanwhile, Toni becomes upset when she learns that Kirkland has left the bulk of his estate to charity and decides to contest the will, which causes Kenny to question her love for him. Later, Jed tells Ward that he has found tire tracks and footprints to support Mrs. Harper's claim, all of which sustain Ward's suspicions that Toni and an unknown boyfriend are the real killers. Soon thereafter, Toni ends her relationship with Kenny and begins seeing her lawyer, Allen Webb (Norman Willis). Jealous and guilt-ridden, Kenny breaks into Toni's house, and the two ex-lovers shoot each other, along with Allen. Before he dies, however, Kenny returns to the Daily Tribune , where he types out a full confession and hands it to Wade.
A 1945 American Black & White film-noir directed by Sam Newfield, produced by Sigmund Neufeld, written by Fred Myton, Based on James M. Cain's novel "Double Indemnity" (1943), cinematography by Jack Greenhalgh, starring Ann Savage, Hugh Beaumont, Russell Hicks, Charles D. Brown, Pierre Watkin, Sarah Padden, Norman Willis, Eva Novak, Buster, George Sherwood, Wheaton Chambers, and Arch Hall Sr.
Toni Kirkland (Ann Savage) drives a 1941 Buick convertible; Kenny Blake (Hugh Beaumont) drives a 1939 DeSoto coupe.
After typing out his confession, Blake tells McKee "That's thirty for tonight.". He's alluding to "-30-", the traditional way to mark the end of a newspaper story.
Director Edgar Georg Ulmer (1904 - 1972) was a Jewish-Moravian, Austrian-American film director who mainly worked on Hollywood B-Movies and other low-budget productions, eventually earning the epithet "The King of PRC," due to his extremely prolific output for the Poverty Row studio. His stylish and eccentric works came to be appreciated by auteur theory-espousing film critics in the years following his retirement. Ulmer's most famous productions include the horror film "The Black Cat" (1934) and the film-noir "Detour" (1945). Ulmer was born in Olomouc, now the Czech Republic. As a young man he lived in Vienna, where he worked as a stage actor and set designer while studying architecture and philosophy. He did set design for Max Reinhardt's theater, served his apprenticeship with F. W. Murnau, and worked with directors including Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann and cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan, inventor of the Schüfftan process.
The plot of Apology for Murder is a blatant rip-off of the seminal film-noir Fred MacMurray/Barbara Stanwyck film "Double Indemnity" (1944), which was released the previous year, based on the novel of the same name. 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 called the film "Single Indemnity". However, Paramount Pictures, the production company of Double Indemnity, obtained an injunction that barred the film's original release under that title. PRC therefore changed the title to "Apology for Murder."
Not a bad way to spend your time, but it cannot get out from the shadow of "Double Indemnity" (1944), a much better movie.
3 окт 2024
