If you’re going to steal, steal from the best. But if you are going to copy something so blatantly, you should at least have something new to say on the subject. It is no secret that Apology for Murder is a blatant cash grab meant to capitalize on the popularity of Double Indemnity, which came out the previous year; the filmmakers make no effort to hide that fact, even planning originally to call their film Single Indemnity until Paramount Pictures sued them to prevent the release under that name. Sigmund Neufeld Productions, which produced Apology for Murder, wanted to capitalize on Double Indemnitybut didn’t understand, or didn’t care, what it was about that film that made it such a beloved picture. Instead, they cut the plot down to the bare bones, trimming out nearly an hour of character moments to save time and money, and the result is a hollow shell of a picture, not worth the scant time needed to watch it.
The plot involves a reporter, Kenny Blake (Hugh Beaumont), who gets involved with Toni Kirkland (Ann Savage), a married woman who wants her husband out of the picture so that she can inherit his fortune. She plots with Kenny to make that happen, arranging and executing what they assume will be the perfect murder. But Kenny’s boss, editor Ward McKee (Charles D. Brown), has some suspicions and doesn’t accept the conclusions the police have made. Soon, he is circling closer and closer towards Kenny and Toni as the clues begin to betray them.
At barely over an hour in length there is no time for nuance or character development. Instead we are given generic stereotypes that we are asked to feel for and that just doesn’t work. We are disgusted by Toni’s selfishness but it is only surface level. Likewise we are left frustrated that this film doesn’t develop the relationship between her and Kenny adequately. Likewise, the working relationship between him and Ward is glossed over so that it lessens the impact of the finale. In Double Indemnity when Edward G. Robinson shares a cigarette with Fred MacMurray at the end there is genuine remorse felt because we have character moments earlier between these two. All of that is absent here and we are left with a husk of a film that is going through the motions without ever earning the moments it is trying to sell us. 1945 - 67 minutes
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