Strange Bargain

Flipping through the channels the other day I discovered the 1949 movie "Strange Bargain". It's about an accountant who accidently gets involved in his boss's murder/suicide. In the end, he is vindicated; the boss's wife did it. The interesting thing is that almost 40 years later the TV show "Murder She Wrote" used the story and the original actors(!!) as the basis for Jessica Fletcher's case (thank you, IMDB trivia). In this version, though, the initial ending has been changed. The accountant has just been released from prison after 30 years having been convicted for the murder of the boss. Of course, Jessica re-solves the case and figures out who the real murderer was. Don't you think TV producers were more clever in the '80s?