Last week’s entry featured a movie with a bad title,  Suspense. This week’s film has an excellent title, Strange Bargain. It accurately describes the sinister deal struck by Jeffrey Lynn with his boss, Richard Gaines. As always, I’m using the actor’s names in lieu of the character’s names. It may not be much of a name game but it’s mine.

Lynn starts off playing your typical respectable Jeffrey Lynn part as in The Roaring Twenties. He’s a bookkeeper at a company that’s going under. Things are so bad that Lynn gets fired, then entertains a creepy proposal from Gaines that involves suicide and insurance fraud. Lynn tries to say no, but his boss is a shitty listener.

The scheme proceeds as planned by Gaines. much to Lynn’s dismay. He finds himself shooting through his employer’s window to hold up his end of this Strange Bargain:

Jeffrey Lynn is a bad criminal. He spends much of the movie violating the first rule of holes: When you’re in one, stop digging.

Martha Scott received first billing, but her role is a thankless one; THE WIFE. But she makes the most of her chances to shine.

A familiar face turns up when the cops arrive: Harry Morgan plays the lead detective on the case. He correctly believes it to be murder and that the suicide is a ruse, so that Gaines’ family can collect on his life insurance policy. Seasoned film noir viewers will know that suicide means no insurance pay off.

Strange Bargain is a well-paced and acted movie with a bad ending. It lets Lynn off way too easily for the flimsiest of reasons. 1949’s bad ending was reversed in a 1988 episode of Murder, She Wrote: The Days Dwindle Down. Martha Scott and Jeffrey Lynn reprised their Strange Bargain roles with a convincing ending this time.

Here are Martha and Jeffrey with Angela Lansbury:

There’s also a scene where a non-black cat spooks Jeffrey Lynn:

There’s nothing special about Will Price’s direction but the screenplay by Lillie Hayward is solid and mostly plausible except for the rotten ending. Friedrich Hollander’s score is  neo-Mahler movie music at its finest.

Grading Time: I give Strange Bargain 3 stars and an Adrastos Grade of B. The same goes for the Murder, She Wrote episode; only the ending is better.

If I had a poster pose, this is where I’d strike it but since I don’t let’s check out the posters for Strange Bargain.

We begin with a side-by-side image of the long sheets:

Note that they give away the insurance fraud scheme on the second poster. That’s why my lips were looser, plot wise. Besides, I don’t have a ship to sink…

Also, in 1949 the man who played Colonel Sherman T. Potter on MASH was still going by his birth name, Henry.

You say Henry, I say Harry. Let’s call the whole thing off and move on to the quad poster.

When you’re at the movies and crave some sugary or salty treats, where do you go? To the lobby, that’s where.

As always, the lobby cards for this black and white flick are in living color.

Note that Jeffrey Lynn is too terrified to backseat drive. He was afraid that Harry Morgan would thwack him with his cane.

I am sorry to report that there’s no trailer for Strange Bargain online. What can a poor boy do?

The last word goes to Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley intro and outro: