Double Jeopardy
Cast & Crew
R. G. Springsteen
Rod Cameron
Gale Robbins
Allison Hayes
Jack Kelly
John Litel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In Los Angeles, building financier Emmet Devery rejects the advice of his lawyer, Marc Hill, to apply for government financing for a proposed housing project and then refuses to give a reason for his decision. Noticing that Emmet has been acting strangely, Marc, who is courting Emmet's daughter Barbara, realizes that the usually upstanding financier is hiding something. Meanwhile, a pathetic alcoholic, Sam Baggett, finds out that his much younger wife Margie is seeing another man, but nevertheless is desperate to keep her. Margie admits to her lover, Jeff Calder, a used car salesman at Happy Harry's car lot, that she married Sam because he had $10,000. The money did not last long, but she has since learned that Sam got the money from "a friend" who gives him $500 every month. Promising to take her away to Mexico, Jeff urges her to pressure Sam to get another $10,000 from his benefactor. When Margie threatens to leave Sam unless he gives her money, Sam calls Emmet, the former business partner he has been blackmailing, and demands more hush money. Emmet has been paying Sam to keep silent about their former association, which ended twenty years earlier when Sam was caught absconding with investors' money for a building project. After Sam was released from prison, he blackmailed Emmet for $10,000 and Emmet, on the brink of prosperity and fearing bad publicity, thought it better to pay. To avoid an investigation into his past, Emmet has avoided applying for government assistance for his projects, but now is weary of Sam's unrelenting demands. When he meets Sam at a lonely part of Mulholland Drive, he tells him that he intends to stop the payments and plans to tell the truth to Barbara about his past. After Emmet leaves, Jeff, who has followed Sam and thinks that Emmet turned over the money, tries to rob Sam, and in the ensuing struggle, Sam drives over the cliff. After Sam's body is found, the police, with Margie's help, uncover Emmet's payments to Sam and arrest the innocent man for murder. When Marc discovers that the car Sam was driving on the night of his death came from Happy Harry's, he talks to Happy Harry, the owner, and learns that Margie is a frequent visitor. Marc then goes to the Baggetts' apartment building where the landlady, Mrs. Kreesy, identifies Jeff as Margie's boyfriend and shows him a place in her apartment where pipes carry sound from the Baggetts' apartment upstairs. After Lt. Freid, the police inspector, refuses to cooperate with him, Marc proceeds on his own. Marc tricks Margie by showing her a fake confession from Emmet stating that he paid Sam $10,000 on the night of his death. Margie then calls Jeff and accuses him of stealing the money from Sam and planning to double-cross her. After eavesdropping on the conversation from Mrs. Kreesy's apartment, Marc and Barbara follow Margie to the car lot. There Jeff tells Margie that he has buried the money, and suggests that they immediately dig it up and leave for Mexico. Unaware that Marc and Barbara are following them, Jeff drives Margie to the same spot where Sam met his death and tries to kill her. Marc arrives in time to save Margie and, while Marc fights Jeff, Barbara honks the car horn to alert a police car passing on the road below. In the car are Freid and his men, who have been following Marc and Barbara. The police assist Marc in subduing Jeff and then apprehend Margie, who has tried to run away from the scene. After scolding Marc for dabbling in police work, Freid tells Barbara that her father's name is now exonerated.
Director
R. G. Springsteen
Cast
Rod Cameron
Gale Robbins
Allison Hayes
Jack Kelly
John Litel
Robert Armstrong
John Gallaudet
Bob Nelson
Minerva Urecal
Tom Powers
Dick Elliott
Fern Hall
Robert Shayne
Howard Price
Gay Gallagher
Rudy Robles
Crew
Fay Babcock
Cliff Bell
R. Dale Butts
Bart Carré
Carroll Clark
Howard Lydecker
Theodore Lydecker
Bob Mark
Don Martin
John Mccarthy Jr.
Adele Palmer
Rudy Ralston
John L. Russell Jr.
Jeff Selznick
Harry Smith
Mary Yerke
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of the film was The Crooked Ring. The film was copyrighted twice, first on May 6, 1955 and again on May 25, 1955, both under the release title. An altered adaptation of the film, titled Death Do Us Part, aired on May 15, 1957 on Lux VideoTheatre, starring Alexis Smith as a woman acquitted of murdering her husband and Kent Smith as the detective who believes she is guilty.
