Strange Bargain is an unusual "B" picture in that it begins with a far-fetched premise but gradually gets better and better due to some carefully placed twists and turns in the plot.
Jeffrey Lynn plays Sam Wilson, a typical suburban husband with two children and his loving wife Georgia (Martha Scott). Georgia begs Sam to ask for a raise at work as the family can hardly make ends meet on his meager assistant bookkeeper salary. We soon become quite engaged when Sam asks his boss Sydney Jarvis (Raymond Roe) for the raise and is immediately fired due to the fact that the firm has been losing money continually for the last few years.
Soon a new but even more surprising twist occurs when Jarvis asks Sam to participate in an insurance scam. Jarvis reveals that he is now broke and plans to commit suicide but cannot will the insurance money to his wife and son if he does himself in. So he first offers Sam $10,000 to come to his house, shoot a gun to simulate a murder after Jarvis goes through with killing himself.
Naturally Sam declines to go along with the scheme which is what any normal person would do. But after getting a call from Jarvis who begs him to still help him, Sam changes his mind and drives over to Jarvis's home where he finds his boss dead on the floor.
Now can you believe just about anybody, let alone an upstanding family man, would get involved in a plot which could land him in jail for life or even go to the gas chamber? The motive here is twofold: Sam needs the money because he knows he's just been fired and he also feels sorry for Mrs. Jarvis (Katherine Emery) who will be penniless if it's discovered that her husband committed suicide.
So okay we're asked to suspend our disbelief and accept the idea that Sam is some sort of poor schnook who gets involved primarily for altruistic reasons. But why does he destroy the note Jarvis left for him which would exonerate him if he was ever accused of murder?
I was expecting the narrative to take a dark turn with unpleasant consequences for our protagonist but that's not what happens. Instead a new suspect emerges: Sydney's partner Timothy Hearne (Henry O'Neill) who was known to dislike Jarvis and wanted to take over the company. In fact, we discover later on that Hearne showed up at Jarvis's home and argued with him just before Sam arrived.
A young Harry Morgan (of Dragnet and MASH fame) has the best part here as Lt. Webb, the dogged police investigator who saves the day in the climactic scene where it's revealed that Jarvis was weak-willed and couldn't go through with killing himself so his wife did him in instead. With Sam about to reveal all to the police, Mrs. Jarvis attempts to kill him and that's when Webb steps in.
And the best twist of all is that Sam is exonerated because no crime was committed on his part (according to the good lieutenant-although a case certainly could be made that Sam attempted to commit insurance fraud even though Jarvis ended not pulling off the scheme).
Lynn and Scott probably have the least interesting roles here (if this was a comedy, you would probably classify them as the "straight men"). The supporting players however are all quite interesting and the neat twist ending even gave rise to an alternative ending years later in a 1987 Murder, She Wrote episode in which Mrs. Jarvis gets away with the murder and 30 years later an investigator goes about proving Sam's innocence. The remarkable thing about the episode is that Lynn, Morgan and Scott reprised their roles for the TV show.
Jeffrey Lynn plays Sam Wilson, a typical suburban husband with two children and his loving wife Georgia (Martha Scott). Georgia begs Sam to ask for a raise at work as the family can hardly make ends meet on his meager assistant bookkeeper salary. We soon become quite engaged when Sam asks his boss Sydney Jarvis (Raymond Roe) for the raise and is immediately fired due to the fact that the firm has been losing money continually for the last few years.
Soon a new but even more surprising twist occurs when Jarvis asks Sam to participate in an insurance scam. Jarvis reveals that he is now broke and plans to commit suicide but cannot will the insurance money to his wife and son if he does himself in. So he first offers Sam $10,000 to come to his house, shoot a gun to simulate a murder after Jarvis goes through with killing himself.
Naturally Sam declines to go along with the scheme which is what any normal person would do. But after getting a call from Jarvis who begs him to still help him, Sam changes his mind and drives over to Jarvis's home where he finds his boss dead on the floor.
Now can you believe just about anybody, let alone an upstanding family man, would get involved in a plot which could land him in jail for life or even go to the gas chamber? The motive here is twofold: Sam needs the money because he knows he's just been fired and he also feels sorry for Mrs. Jarvis (Katherine Emery) who will be penniless if it's discovered that her husband committed suicide.
So okay we're asked to suspend our disbelief and accept the idea that Sam is some sort of poor schnook who gets involved primarily for altruistic reasons. But why does he destroy the note Jarvis left for him which would exonerate him if he was ever accused of murder?
I was expecting the narrative to take a dark turn with unpleasant consequences for our protagonist but that's not what happens. Instead a new suspect emerges: Sydney's partner Timothy Hearne (Henry O'Neill) who was known to dislike Jarvis and wanted to take over the company. In fact, we discover later on that Hearne showed up at Jarvis's home and argued with him just before Sam arrived.
A young Harry Morgan (of Dragnet and MASH fame) has the best part here as Lt. Webb, the dogged police investigator who saves the day in the climactic scene where it's revealed that Jarvis was weak-willed and couldn't go through with killing himself so his wife did him in instead. With Sam about to reveal all to the police, Mrs. Jarvis attempts to kill him and that's when Webb steps in.
And the best twist of all is that Sam is exonerated because no crime was committed on his part (according to the good lieutenant-although a case certainly could be made that Sam attempted to commit insurance fraud even though Jarvis ended not pulling off the scheme).
Lynn and Scott probably have the least interesting roles here (if this was a comedy, you would probably classify them as the "straight men"). The supporting players however are all quite interesting and the neat twist ending even gave rise to an alternative ending years later in a 1987 Murder, She Wrote episode in which Mrs. Jarvis gets away with the murder and 30 years later an investigator goes about proving Sam's innocence. The remarkable thing about the episode is that Lynn, Morgan and Scott reprised their roles for the TV show.