Review #644: 'This Gun for Hire' (1942)

While the 'film noir' genre was still in its earlier stages (back then they were generally referred to simply as melodramas), This Gun For Hire, an exciting, violent thriller from Frank Tuttle, probably shares more thematically with the Pre-Code gangster thrillers. There is no femme fatale to manipulate the film's anti-hero, nor is the lead a hard-bitten private dick or a dead-beat trying to make some cash. In fact, there isn't really a lead at all. It's arguably three inter-linking stories that intertwine and finally come to a head at the climax. Such is the curiosity of This Gun For Hire, one of the finest examples of the B-movie noirs.

Stoic hitman Philip Raven (Alan Ladd) guns down chemist Albert Baker (Frank Ferguson) and his innocent secretary, and takes what he came for - a chemical formula. His employer, the effeminate and cowardly Willard Gates (Laird Cregar), pays Raven in marked bills and then reports the bills stolen from his company. Nightclub entertainer Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake) is in town to audition for a nightclub spot owned by Gates, but is pulled aside by a senator hoping to gain information on Gates, who is under investigation for treason. Graham's boyfriend, LAPD detective Michael Crane (Robert Preston) is assigned to the case of Raven and the stolen money, but Raven has plans for revenge.

Although only fourth-billed, this made a star of Alan Ladd. His dead-eyed, cold-blooded gun for hire is what you take away from the film. Like Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947), his character displays such a shocking lack of ethics, quite alarming for its day. His brief moment of humanity comes when he chooses to spare an child who sees his face after a murder. Yet Ladd makes him undeniably compelling, even when he's smacking his girlfriend around for messing with his cat. Veronica Lake, an actress who has yet to completely win me over, does a decent job with a rather unexciting character, performing a couple of nice musical numbers (even though she is lip-synching) while performing magic.

Made during WWII, the overseas menace plays a definite part in the film. While by no means a political thriller, the chemical formula that Raven unwittingly steals is for poison gas, intended to be sold overseas to the highest bidder by Gates' mysterious, wheelchair-bound boss Alvin Brewster (Tully Marshall). America's need for corny patriotism damages the film in the end, used as a tool to allow its mean anti-hero some one-dimensional sympathy. It's my only real problem with the film, which without the ending, could have been up there with the greats of film noir. It's still a damn fine film, as hard-edged as you would want your noirs to be, with a truly enigmatic character (and actor) at its centre.


Directed by: Frank Tuttle
Starring: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie