Strange Bargain (1949)

Directed by Will Price; produced by Sid Rogell

Sam Wilson (Jeffrey Lynn) is a man with a loving wife (Martha Scott) and two good kids. He also is having trouble making ends meet. As an assistant bookkeeper, he apparently doesn’t make much, and is living beyond his means. So too, he learns, is one of his bosses, Malcolm Jarvis (Richard Gaines), who concocts a desperate plan to provide for his own family. Jarvis intends to kill himself, but needs Wilson’s help to make the death look like a murder, so as not to invalidate the insurance policy which will give $250,000 to his wife and son. In return, Wilson will receive $10,000. Refusing to participate, Wilson is nonetheless involved when he tries to stop Jarvis’s scheme, and then can only watch as the police try to catch whom they believe to be a killer: Wilson himself.

The premise of Strange Bargain leaves little room for doubt as to whether complications will arise from the protagonist’s involvement in his boss’s plot. If Sam Wilson had seen even one film noir in his life, he would have known that only trouble could ensue. The tension arises in such movies from the actions of the investigators and the reactions of the guilty. Unfortunately, there isn’t really any suspense generated in Strange Bargain.

This is largely the fault of the direction, which is lacklustre. Will Price directed only three feature films, none distinguished. He is probably better known as Maureen O’Hara’s second husband than for anything else. Little is done with the scenes that might have created some excitement, and even the climax seems rather forced.

Also to blame is the script, which doesn’t make much of the situation. It doesn’t explain why the Wilsons are in a financial hole. Most middle-class families of 1949 had a few large debts - mortgage, car-payments - but even with a couple of children (many families had more) and a moderately-sized home (housing was cheap then), that economic level of the population rarely had to struggle to get by. The Wilsons live quietly, Sam seems a homebody and his wife clearly has no vices. A little more explanation of an essential plot feature would have helped.

As well, the climax of the story seems to come out of nowhere, and the omniscience of the police is simply assumed. This is certainly not a plot that ‘plays fair’ with the audience in giving all the clues necessary for viewers to help solve Wilson’s dilemma.

The script doesn’t make the main character someone to sympathise with. Sam Wilson is not unlikeable, but neither is he someone the audience can get behind. The best characters are the police detectives on the case: Webb (Harry Morgan - billed as ‘Henry’ Morgan) and Cord (Walter Sande), who have a good working relationship; Webb, an allegedly legendary crime-fighter, is a bit overbearing with his subordinate, who nonetheless takes it in good humour. (Morgan would later be associated with a real-life Webb - Jack Webb - in the later years of the tv series Dragnet.)

Though a low budget doesn’t always hamper a movie’s effectiveness, Strange Bargain’s cheapness can be felt - and, more strongly, heard. The sound and the manner of speaking of some characters gives me the impression of badly produced documentaries of the era. This is partly the fault of technical aspects, and partly the acting, which is, with the exception of Morgan, Sande, Scott and a few others, a little below average.

While the set-up of Strange Bargain has promise, the execution is compromised by too many factors for the movie to be a satisfactory experience.