This is the movie you'd write if were Fred Myton instead of Billy Wilder, James Cain and Raymond Chandler. That meant you had no talent, but had just seen DOUBLE INDEMNITY and said "I could do that too!" and proceeded to, down to calling it SINGLE INDEMNITY before Paramount heard and threatened to sue. That's the story that PRC's resident auteur, Edgar G. Ulmer claimed years afterwards.
I'm not one to credit Ulmer particularly, but there the evidence was on the screen. Even the bits that were different were clearly done by reversing bits in Billy Wilders movie; instead of Fred MacMurray lighting matches with his nail for Edward G. Robinson's cigars, Charles Brown lights Hugh Beaumont's cigarettes with Beaumont's lighter -- which doesn't work for Beaumont, but does for Brown.
Otherwise, it's Bad Girl Ann Savage replacing Barbara Stanwyck, Hugh Beaumont replacing MacMurray, and Charles Brown replacing Robinson, Sam Newfield replacing Billy Wilder, and a newspaper replacing an insurance agency. None of them are bad in the roles -- except for the newspaper office -- but the brilliance of DOUBLE INDEMNITY is such that I can't even be bothered to hate this. I don't care enough.
I'm not one to credit Ulmer particularly, but there the evidence was on the screen. Even the bits that were different were clearly done by reversing bits in Billy Wilders movie; instead of Fred MacMurray lighting matches with his nail for Edward G. Robinson's cigars, Charles Brown lights Hugh Beaumont's cigarettes with Beaumont's lighter -- which doesn't work for Beaumont, but does for Brown.
Otherwise, it's Bad Girl Ann Savage replacing Barbara Stanwyck, Hugh Beaumont replacing MacMurray, and Charles Brown replacing Robinson, Sam Newfield replacing Billy Wilder, and a newspaper replacing an insurance agency. None of them are bad in the roles -- except for the newspaper office -- but the brilliance of DOUBLE INDEMNITY is such that I can't even be bothered to hate this. I don't care enough.