Compromisso de Honra

An interesting note about this movie: The TV Series "Murder, She Wrote" produced a "sequel" to it in a 1987 episode, "The Days Dwindle Down," (episode # 3.21). Several actors, including Harry Morgan, reprise their roles. Jessica Fletcher re-solves the original crime by interviewing several of the original characters some 30 years after the fact (actually closer to 40 years!). The episode makes nice use of scenes from the original movie as flashbacks to explain the plot. Imagine the surprise of watching a typical MSW episode about an old murder, and then a 34-year-old Harry Morgan suddenly pops up in B&W interviewing the same (though younger) witnesses about the same murder!

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."

What's neat about 1949's Strange Bargain is that on an episode of Murder, She Wrote, some of the cast returned for a sequel, during which Jessica tries to get to the bottom of the case. The film solved the case, but for the Murder, She Wrote episode, "The Days Dwindle Down," they added another twist to what we saw.

Anyway, it was a good idea because the film was used in flashbacks. The returning stars were Martha Scott, Jeffrey Lynn (who had long ago left show business and made a fortune in real estate) and Harry Morgan.

In the film Strange Bargain, Jeffrey Lynn plays Sam Wilson, an assistant bookkeeper at a company that is going under. He and his wife, Georgia (Scott) are having trouble making ends meet. With the encouragement of his wife, Sam goes in to ask for a raise and learns then that he's fired. Later on, as he's leaving, his boss, Mr. Jarvis (Richard Gaines) asks him to have a drink.

Jarvis admits that he's gone through the $500,000 his father left him (the equivalent of about 4 million today), and he is basically broke. He plans on killing himself and making it look like murder so his wife (Katherine Emery) can collect his $250,000 insurance policy; with double indemnity, that makes $500,000. He's going to set it up as a robbery. He will call Sam and give him a signal, and he wants Sam to come to his home then and remove the gun and dump it in the river. For that, he'll leave Sam $10,000 in the open safe.

Sam refuses to help him and attempts to talk Jarvis out of it, but he won't be swayed. Sam still refuses to help.

However, Jarvis calls him and gives the signal. Sam pleads with him to wait until he can get there and talk to him, but he's too late. He removes the gun and the money.

The police (Harry Morgan and Walter Sande) start an investigation and hone in on Jarvis' partner, Timothy Hearne (Henry O'Neill). Sam insists that Hearne couldn't have done it, but he's afraid that the man will be arrested.

This is a pretty good film. Lynn's career never recovered after World War II - he was a pleasant enough actor, and still made occasional TV appearances even after he left. Katherine Emery always reminds me of Mercedes McCambridge.

Watch it with the Murder She Wrote episode which you can stream.

Because it's only 68 minutes and has no Big stars or director, it's a B film, but it's better than many an A film that it shared billing with. The story, though lacking suspense, is engrossing, and Lynn, Scott, and Morgan are superb. The best part of the movie for me was seeing suburban family life in 1949. Lynn and Scott are happily married and have 2 happy children. Scott volunteers at church and Lynn says grace before meals. But their happy home is threatened because Lynn's salary is insufficient to support a wife and 2 school-age children. Scott tells Lynn to ask for a raise, after all, he's been with the company for 12 years (he didn't serve 4 years in WW2?) The option of Scott getting a job occurs to neither of them, but then, this was years before the feminist revolution.

The script is excellent. Dialogue supports characterization so that we 'know' all of these people. I liked Lynn. He's a decent man, one who on the spur of the moment makes the wrong choice. His mistake in judgment ensnares him in a tightening web of trouble. I liked Scott, who exemplifies the perfect mate. I liked Morgan, who always gets his man, but who makes sure that he gets the right one. The ending is a surprise, though once revealed, seems obvious. I liked the director's touch at the finish of having Morgan's cane disarm the murderer just in the nick of time. In fact, I liked everything about this little B film.

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.