Underplayed Gems

Apology for Murder (1945)

Apology for Murder poster
Directed by
Sam Newfield
Genre
drama film, film noir
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 07m
Rating
4.9 of 10 from 15 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A man gets caught up in a murder plot with a dangerous woman. It follows the same story as a famous earlier film where a couple plots to kill the woman's husband for insurance money.

suspensefultensebleaknoirishatmosphericgrittyfast-pacedcynical

What happens

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. The plot of Apology for Murder is a blatant rip-off of the seminal film noir Double Indemnity 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. Much acclaimed B movie director Edgar G. Ulmer, who was working at PRC at the time Apology for Murder was made, claimed during a 1970 interview with director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich that he wrote the original Single Indemnity script for producer Sigmund Neufeld. Ulmer, though, 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. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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