Apology for Murder (1945)

Posted by Steve-O

Apology for Murder is not a great movie. However, the film does give viewers a glimpse into how films (especially B-movies) were green-lighted in the 1940s.

Double Indemnity was released in 1944 and made movie history. It wasn't the first film noir but it was and still is one of the best. If you're ever stuck trying to explain to someone what film noir is, pop Double Indemnity into the DVD player and have them get comfortable. The twisty plot told with razor-sharp dialog (courtesy of James M. Cain and screenwriters Raymond Chandler and director Billy Wilder) was jaw dropping in it's freshness. No one ever spoke or acted like Neff and Phyllis in films before – certainly no one in the real world was ever that quick witted. In fact, the film – filled with implied sex and violence- just a few years before release was considered impossible to make thanks to the Hayes code. Casting also proved difficult due to the racy content. Even Wilder's long time collaborator Charles Brackett steered clear of the project. Wilder pushed the film forward despite all the roadblocks.

When Double Indemnity was released in 1944 it changed everything. The financial and critical success of the movie opened the floodgates and studios rushed to make the next “Double Indemnity.” Cain's steamy best seller The Postman Always Rings Twice, which had its own rocky journey to the silver screen, was finally considered filmable thanks to its success. Not only did Wilder and crew find a way to bypass the Hayes Code (by using double-meaning dialog and suggestive -but not explicit- visual images to describe sex and murder) but they helped define a new film style. Armed with these newly found freedoms filmmakers pushed out several movies born because of Double Indemnity. Movies we'd call film noir. (Certainly many, many other films from that time also contributed to noir – including The Maltese Falcon and Murder, My Sweet – but I think none had the impact of Double Indemnity.)

Hollywood does the same copycatting today. If a Michael Crichton book becomes a blockbuster then all his novels are filmed. When The Lord of the Rings did huge business it started the ball rolling on several sci-fi/fantasy trilogies.

The difference today there are no Poverty Row studios - or at least not as they were in the 1940s. Today, when a movie is ripped off it's usually a straight-to-video title people only take home from Blockbuster when they've mistook it for something else. However, these home video releases at least have some budget. The makers of Apology for Murder and the vastly superior Detour, PRC, seemed to make movies without any financing – or at least they looked that way.

Which brings us to Apology for Murder. This isn't just a film in the mold of Double Indemnity from a year before – it's an exact copy of it. Or should I say it's a copy of the film if it were made with little budget and no star power. The two leads at the time were no names. It would be years before Hugh Beaumont would become Ward Cleaver on TV. The femme fatale Ann Savage would go onto become a household name among cult film and noir lovers thanks to Detour (which was released by PRC the same year). It wasn't until the 1960s before Savage would get any praise for her role. Thanks to countless 3 am insomniac airing of Detour on TV beginning in the 60s, word of mouth about Savage's brilliant performance as Vera spread among film affectionatos that continues today.

In Apology for Murder, Savage actually is almost unrecognizable in the glamorous femme fatale role. I've seen Detour so many times I just assumed that she was always the dark and evil Vera. However, in Apology for Murder B-western director Sam Newfield shows us a Savage I never new. Wearing formal 1945-stylish cloths and lighter hair I wouldn't have recognized her if I didn't read the credits. It's amazing that this woman would become Vera just a few months later (Apology for Murder was released in September and Detour in November of 1945). Savage pulls it off. She's sexy from the first glimpse of her gams.

Hugh Beaumont is another story. Certainly he was handsome enough to be a leading man but I think he had a very limited range. Another thing about Beaumont is that he will always be remembered by generations of TV fans as one of the most famous dads ever. It's hard watching him spout witty lines without thinking about all those speeches he gave Wally and Beav. Now that Leave it to Beaver is shown less and less on TV maybe younger movie fans won't immediately make the connection and appreciate Beaumont as the tough talking newspaper man. Then again, whenever I show someone Double Indemnity for the first time they usually shout out “My Three Sons!” when Fred MacMurray comes on screen. The connection between Ward Cleaver and Beaumont in Anthony Mann's Railroaded! is even closer. When Beaumont (a young cop in that one) shows up in a very Leave it to Beaver-like suburb any feelings about the movie being a serious crime film go out the window. Which is a shame because Railroaded! actually is a watchable thriller.

Back to Apology for Murder. When Kenny Blake (Beaumont) first sees Toni (Savage) he breaks out in a grin that goes ear to ear. Beaumont totally overplays the scene. You can tell Blake is attracted to her just by the way they photographed Savage – showing her legs flicking up in the air before you even see her face. A better director would have advised Beaumont to turn it down a few degrees and take the scene again. However, considering that the film was probably made in less than a week there probably wasn't time.

After the two meet up and apparently sleep together its only then does Blake realize that Toni is married. In Double Indemnity Neff not only knows that Phyllis is married but you suspect this isn't the first lonely housewife he's encountered. The realization is an unintentionally funny scene in Apology for Murder. Only hours before they learned each others names and now after they've slept together does this newspaper man find out that she's married to the rich old man he tried to interview earlier.

After that the film plays exactly like Double Indemnity. The femme fatale gets her sucker boyfriend to kill her husband. The boyfriend feels guilty because someone else is being accused of the murder and so he steps in and tries to do the right thing by stopping Phyllis/Toni. I would guess that if you haven't seen Double Indemnity for a while you may actually find Apology for Murder a decent grade-Z thriller. For classic movie fans I would recommend it just to see Savage play in another film noir.

The end has another surprise. When Blake confronts Toni while she two timing on him with her lawyer, Blake shoots and kills the unarmed lawyer and then shots Toni in the back. After that Blake stumbles back to his newspaper and writes his confession (on a typewriter instead of a dictograph). I found it hard to feel sorry for this guy. I mean did he have to kill the lawyer? I'm not sure why he did it. I know he's a lawyer and all but that seems overkill. A strange end to say the least.

Surprisingly the film is finally out on home video. The copy isn't perfect – it's the same quality as we've seen watching DVDs of Detour – but it's a considerable improvement over film collectors copies that have been floating around. Definitely one you'd want to pick up if you're a film noir completest.

Not a great movie but a excellent example of how Poverty Row studios worked in the 1940s.