Strange Bargain

When JEFFREY LYNN had to leave his career during WWII for the armed services, it seemed to cut into whatever momentum he had built up at Warner Brothers. By the time he did STRANGE BARGAIN for RKO, his dwindling career wasn't exactly in high gear. Nevertheless, he gives a good performance here as a man unwillingly caught up in a chain of events that almost lands him in a great deal of trouble.

He's an assistant bookkeeper at a law firm that is going through hard times. On the day that he gets up enough courage to ask for a raise, he's told that because of all the cuts being made, he has to be let go. His boss, however, has a strange bargain to make with him and that's the nub of the story without giving any more of the plot away.

MARTHA SCOTT is fine as his loving wife who never suspects anything is wrong until she makes a certain discovery. HARRY MORGAN is the detective who knows something isn't quite right when Lynn's boss is found not a victim of suicide, as had been planned, but a victim of murder. KATHERINE EMERY, an interesting actress who had been used well in THE LOCKET, has a pivotal role as the dead man's widow but plays the role so stiffly that it's not easy to believe the film's ending.

It's a story that catches interest from the start and maintains that suspense throughout. JEFFREY LYNN, never an actor given to much emotion, is calm and stalwart as the innocent victim of circumstances beyond his control.

A B-film worth catching if you can.

Picture Ward Cleaver or the Robert Young character in "Father Knows best" in deep trouble. That's what we're shown here, with always handsome Jeffrey Lynn as the suburban dad.

The title bargain is his boss's asking him to help him make a suicide look like murder so that he (the boss) can leave insurance money for his family.

Hey! This doesn't figure in the softball and charity meetings of this town! Nor does Lynn's having, before this, been laid off by the boss.

Katherine Emory is excellent as the not so very grieving widow. Harry Morgan is just fine as a police detective who walks leaning on a cane. And Martha Scott is superb as Mrs. Jeffrey Lynn: She's most famous for her touching portrayal of Emily in "Our Town." but she had fa greater depth, as shown most notably in her magnificent performance in "So Well Remembered" a couple years before this little charmer came out.

Ah, for the days when local television showed low budget movies like this to fill up time. Now we have to wait fore them to appear out of nowhere on Turnwer Classics or be programmed at places like the Film Forum here in New Yiork. After all: What self-respecting person what want to waste a plasma TV on a black and white movie?!

Sam Wilson (Jeffrey Lynn) is a well respected Christian man, residing in an attractive middle class neighborhood. He has a responsible job, plus an adoring wife and family. Unfortunately, financial issues are threatening to turn suburban bliss into suburban blues.

On the very day that this meek, mild-mannered male musters sufficient courage to request a raise, his boss (Richard Gaines) offers him an unexpected windfall, provided that he is prepared to be the pivotal figure in a bizarre murder/suicide insurance scam. Will Lynn, the archetypal shrinking violet, shrink from violence?

Following Gaines suspicious death, cantankerous colleague, Henry 'O Neill is the investigation's centre of interest, but the shudder at his own shadow, wouldn't say boo to a goose Lynn also comes under the microscope of diligent, disabled detective and local celebrity, Harry Morgan, respected for a war record superior to anything that Glenn Miller ever released.

At an efficient, in-BANG-out 68 minutes Strange Bargain ought to have been fairly flab free, but there are moments of unnecessarily leaden footed talkiness along the way. With injury time approaching, the movie finally wriggles free from its inertia and hits pay dirt, courtesy of a couple of nifty plot twists and some eyebrow raising surprises.

Don't mistake brevity and low budget for lack of quality. This movie is very well scripted and conceived. Harry Morgan gives a terrific performance as the policeman and Jeffrey Lynn is appropriately perplexed as the devoted husband who suddenly finds himself holding the bag when he is tricked by his boss into an ill-fated endeavor. Martha Scott is marvelous as his well-grounded wife. Strange Bargain is well-paced and well-acted throughout.

Interestingly, this later served as a basis for a Murder She Wrote episode with Jeffrey Lynn, Martha Scott, and Harry Morgan recreating their roles. It actually makes for a fascinating "sequel."

For any Murder She Wrote fans, this movie may be familiar. It was the main feature for an episode entitled 'The Days Dwindle Down', aired in April of 1987. Jeffrey Lynn, Harry Morgan and Martha Scott resurrected their roles for the episode. I have yet to see the movie, however after seeing this episode, I am now intrigued to see what the movie was actually like.