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.

Outside the Wall (1950)

Directed by Crane Wilbur; produced by Aaron Rosenberg

After 15 years as a convict, Larry Nelson (Richard Basehart) has been pardoned. All he knows about life outside his prison’s walls is what other inmates have told him. He finds knowing who to trust, how to behave and where to go, puzzling and unnerving, though his intelligence and instincts guide him. But when it comes to criminals trying to involve him in their desperate schemes, Nelson may not have as many options.

Outside the Wall features another very good performance by Basehart, a solid leading man from the late 1940s and ‘50s. The writing and direction are not quite up to his level but nonetheless contribute to an entertaining and thoughtful movie.

The concept is interesting. Nelson, in and out of reform schools as a boy, was convicted of manslaughter at fourteen: defending himself against an abusive guard, he accidentally killed the man. Transferred to an adult prison, he seems to have grown into an easy-going, model prisoner, well-liked by the other inmates as well as by the guards and the warden. This is reflected in his character once released: he is adequately friendly but aloof, unwilling to make trouble but ready to fight back if necessary.

Such a character takes both good acting and persuasive writing. Very telling is the contrast between the uneasy manner in which Nelson behaves among the ordinary citizens of the outside world, and the way he acts when confronted by crooks or former prisoners. Meeting an acquaintance from prison (now escaped and running from the law), Nelson immediately becomes self-assured and strong; with this sort, he knows exactly what’s up.

The story initially features Nelson’s apprehensive and conflicting involvement in the world at large, but then shifts into a more routine crime story. This isn’t a bad change, and the tale that follows it has both satisfying action and suspense. Even so, the story is less interesting than the script itself. There are one or two unexplained aspects that are not very important to the movie, such as why Nelson is pardoned, rather than paroled.

The direction is admirably subtle at times. There is an amusing scene when Nelson obtains a job at a sanitarium; room and board are included. He paces across his new bedroom and then smiles. Nothing refers to that sequence again, but one can guess that his new quarters are about the size of a jail-cell. At another moment, he stumbles upon a robbery, and notes how he’s met would-be crooks like these before, and how they are always scared; he is meanwhile hugging himself, scared on his own account, yet ready for a fight.

Outside the Wall is weighed down a little by a fairly average crime-plot in its later two thirds but Basehart carries the film, assisted admirably by good directing, decent writing, and capable supporting players (On that subject, Joe Besser, one of the later Three Stooges, plays a cook.)

No Name on the Bullet (1959)

Directed by Jack Arnold; produced by Jack Arnold and Howard Christie

The residents of a prosperous western town are startled by the arrival of John Gant (Audie Murphy). Gant is a hired killer who shoots down men for the money paid to him by his victims’ enemies. Refusing to fight won’t save a man, as Gant has a knack of galling a victim into drawing a weapon first, then successfully claiming self-defence. Now, everyone is wondering for whom Gant has come, and who hired him. Soon, the townspeople find that their worst enemy isn’t Gant, it’s their own guilty consciences.

Probably the best of Murphy’s movies, No Name on the Bullet is as much a psychological drama with a western setting as a straight western. There is gun-play, but the real action is in the attitudes of the supporting characters.

Gant is like the Angel of Death; no one knows whom he will touch, and everyone starts searching their past, trying to determine who would want them dead. Those with clean consciences, such as the local doctor and his father, the blacksmith (played by Charles Drake and R.G. Armstrong, respectively, even though they were the same age) are worried only about the effects of Gant on the town.

Though the identity of Gant’s next victim will probably be no mystery to many viewers, there is nonetheless tension throughout the movie, as the townsfolk look askance at each other, and the doctor tries to talk Gant out of his mission and simultaneously to understand the young killer. The writing is very good in this respect, but also in terms of individual scenes.

There is a strong philosophical flavour to the dialogue, whether indirectly, in what the townspeople argue about, or directly, in the conversations between the doctor and Gant. There is a scene in which the two of them play chess, an intriguing variation of the scene between the knight and Death in The Seventh Seal, released two years before.

The acting is very good as well, especially on the part of Murphy, who plays a very restrained character, unnaturally calm, someone who knows well how people will act and react, perhaps because he has seen so many in extremis. He knows that he can defeat or face down any individual, and knows that a mob, threatened as individuals, won’t have the courage to do anything. He is also a content man, having no remorse for what he does, whether because he is truly amoral or because he is truly moral - though his morals would not be shared by the majority.

The direction is good, as well. Arnold is known more these days for his work in the science fiction genre (eg. The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man) of the 1950s, though he eventually went to work almost exclusively in television. It is less the pace or blocking of scenes that provides the tension as the mannerisms and attitudes of the characters, more typical of psychological films than westerns.

No Name on the Bullet is a western that viewers who don’t care for westerns might like, a thoughtful examination of what impending death - or, rather, impending punishment - does to people, and whether or not they deserve what results.

Two O'Clock Courage (1945)

Directed by Anthony Mann; produced by Ben Stoloff

A man (Tom Conway) stumbles through a foggy night and is nearly struck by a cab driven by Patty Mitchell (Ann Rutherford). Unable to recall his name, anything about himself, or recent events, the amnesiac begins to suspect that he is involved in a murder. With Patty’s help, he wends his way through crime scenes, night-clubs and hotel rooms, coming closer to the truth with each hour - and coming closer to being the next murder victim, as well.

Tom Conway, George Sanders’s look-a-like brother, did not achieve the stardom that came to his sibling, though Sanders - except for his role in the Falcon movie series - was usually seen as secondary characters, and villains at that. Conway, at least, thanks perhaps to his more approachable persona, played more protagonists - including taking over as the Falcon from his brother. Such parts, however, were usually found in B-movies, of which Two O’Clock Courage is an example. And while b-movie it may be, it nonetheless falls into the higher end of the spectrum.

This is largely because of the performances and the direction. The latter is in the very capable hands of Anthony Mann, who would go on to make his name in film noir and, especially, westerns. Here, though, he guides the movie through a number of good scenes, nothing spectacular, but most interesting, and keeps the pace moving at a good clip.

The script is not first-rate, but it suits the movie well enough. There are no great revelations when the amnesia victim remembers who he is and what he went through, and the amnesia itself is induced and cured in the crude manner of blows to the head. B-movies tend to view loss of memory as determined almost by a switch that can be turned off and on. This issue aside, there are a number of plot-holes (eg. why was Conway’s character wearing a hat with someone else’s initials in it?) The police investigation is the standard sloppy procedure of b-movies, in which scene-of-crime investigation and expertise is nil.

On the other hand, the writing creates a milieu of high-class night-clubs, the theatre and their various denizens, into which a character played naturally by Conway fits very well. The actor’s Oxford English and seemingly inherent sophistication would not have been served by every setting, so this one’s choice is successful. Also, there are a number of good lines, such as when someone apologises to Conway’s amnesiac for a past insult, to which Conway good naturedly replies, “Forget it. I have.”

Conway’s character and Rutherford’s, despite coming from different social strata, work well together, thanks to the stars. Richard Lane, as a persistent reporter, is annoying, but then, he’s meant to be. Jane Greer (billed as “Bettejane Greer”) has her first credited role, a not insubstantial one.

Two O’Clock Courage is a good, small-budgeted, short (68 minutes) film, a lean mystery with few surprises but advantages that make it worth viewing.