Strange Bargain (1949)

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Jeffrey Lynn plays a bookkeeper who fails in his attempt to get a raise from his employer (Richard Gaines). The boss explains that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy, and that he is planning to kill himself. He offers Lynn $10,000 if Lynn will make the suicide look like murder so that the… More Jeffrey Lynn plays a bookkeeper who fails in his attempt to get a raise from his employer (Richard Gaines). The boss explains that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy, and that he is planning to kill himself. He offers Lynn $10,000 if Lynn will make the suicide look like murder so that the boss' family will collect on his insurance policy. Lynn agrees--and finds himself the fall guy in a complicated fraud scheme. Much of the footage of Strange Bargain showed up as flashbacks in a 1989 episode of TV's Murder, She Wrote. By removing the original happy ending, the TV installment allowed Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) solve the mystery of the boss' murder--and to exonerate the long-imprisoned bookkeeper, played again by Jeffrey Lynn! Also appearing on this remarkable Murder She Wrote were Lynn's surviving Strange Bargain costars Martha Scott and Harry Morgan. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi