Graham Greene's entertainment 'This Gun for Hire', in the hands of script writers Albert Maltz and W.R. Burnett, becomes an cog in the U.S. against fascism. The narrative is transposed from the intrigues of pre-world war two Europe to California. Director Frank Tuttle's is fast moving. It is film noir in its early childhood. We're in 1942, a few months after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl harbor. The narrative moves from San Francisco to Los Angeles, in the early days massive removal of Japanese from principally California, Oregon and Washington, to internment camps. 'This gun for hire' is a tale of murder and political mayhem, of corporate greed and treason. The film is notable for Alan Ladd's first major feature film, and a strong performance it is. He's Philip Raven, a hired killer who performs his craft with a stone-cold sober aplomb. Not a crease in his brow, an ice stare and a voice which betrays no inner emption or doubt. He is betrayed and set up for a fall by the msn who hired his gun. And so in true Greene fashion, Raven is both hunted and hunter, seeking revenge. Although Ladd is given third billing, he is more than ably supported by Veronica Lake as a night club performer who fascinates by her unsentimental singing and her tricks as a quick-handed magician. And although there is a chemistry between her and Raven, it is without romantic passion. That is workman-like indicated by Robert Preston as the police man who is after Ladd. Laid Cregar is oleaginous and slippery as a craven eel who works for the Alvin Brewster who is eager to sell a poison gas formula to the Japanese. The storyline is not difficult to see how everything turns out. Good triumphs, the good fight won;t be poisoned by the gas an American chemist has created; Raven pays for his crime but has redeemed himself by unmasking the internal enemies. In hindsight, three-quarters a century after the film first flashed across the screen, it is easy to see Maltz (one of the Hollywood 10) and Burnett worked in tandem to come up with a script that exposed corruption, greed and in wartime, shone light on pre-war behavior of capitalists who put individual interest before national good in dealing with fascists like Hitler of the Japanese militarists, Franco or Mussolini. And what's more in wartime had not lost that habit. 'This gun for hire' turned Ladd into a major star. It was made for half a million and grossed $12 million. Curiously, in spite of its obviousness, the film has not lost the salt of low-keyed narrative, the darkness of ambiance, and a no nonsense school of film making. And Lake is eye fetching and holds her own.

Alan Ladd (Raven) is a hired killer who carries out a job but is double crossed by his peppermint-munching businessman boss Laird Cregar (Gates). Once Ladd discovers the betrayal, he is determined to get even not only with Cregar but also with the man at the top Tully Marshall (Brewster). Meanwhile, magician singer Veronica Lake (Ellen) is on a secret assignment to spy on Cregar as he has come under suspicion from the US government of selling secrets to the enemy. She is charged with getting the dirt on him. Ladd and Lake stumble across each other and an unlikely alliance is formed. Lake has a boyfriend Robert Preston (Michael) who is a police officer and who is also involved in the chase but in a separate capacity.First of all, Alan Ladd should be credited with the lead role. Robert Preston - I don't think so!! The cast are uniformly good, in fact, Lake and Ladd are above average and Cregar is excellent as always. I'm not an Alan Ladd fan but this is definitely the best role I have seen him in so far. We see that Ladd has kind traits and the film touches on the psychology behind his character and so he is a likable bad guy. And the chemistry that he has with Veronica Lake definitely works. You'll be hoping they get together romantically by the end of the film. The film is stylishly shot and Lake gets to sing a couple of entertaining songs. The film is better than I thought it would turn out to be, especially after already seeing Ladd and Lake in "The Glass Key" and "The Blue Dahlia". This film is much better than those offerings.

I can understand that in the war years of the early 40s this film would have looked pretty impressive. But I can't help wondering what it might have looked like if it had been made by another studio, maybe First National or Warner Brothers in the late 30's/early 40s ~ when these studios were not afraid to produce topical themes and play them as straight drama. As it stands, it's good entertainment with some effective moments. The brilliant opening promises more than the sum of it's overall worth. Perhaps if Graham Green had also crafted the screenplay it may have played very differently. Paramount were obviously going for popular entertainment and seem to have watered the seriousness down to the level of a crowd pleaser. The first Hour has the dramatic feel of Green, but then you gradually begin to feel outside influences creep in (along with some weak, overly obvious war propaganda) Director Frank Tuttle may have been competent, but looks like he might have been more at home with comedy. He does manage to get good performances from his two primary players, but considering this was Ladd's first real chance at the 'big time', he was obviously working very hard. For a decade following his success here, he seemed to coast along in commercial, by the numbers roles, till George Stevens gave him some challenging direction in Shane. Veronica Lake was best suited to her impressive song and trick/dance segments, but seemed a tad too comfortable in some particularly dangerous situations. A lot of the films strength lies in it's look. Highly creative Director of Photography: John Seitz, who gave such strong visual appeal to dramatic classics like: The Lost Weekend, Double Indemnity, and Sunset Boulevard, pulls out all stops to create dramatic mood, without overshadowing the story. Art and Set designs by Award winner Hans Dreier also impress. This first time pairing of Ladd and Lake obviously worked at the box office and it's far superior to their third teaming ~ the rather silly 'Blue Dahlia' --that film also heralded the first credited screenplay by Raymond Chandler --Chandler at the time, they say, was on the wagon, but had to get drunk to finish the 'Dahlia' script....and it showed.Most will still enjoy 'This Gun for Hire' but it should have been far Superior. Perhaps it may also have faired better if given an English treatment, like some of Green's other filmed stories? The wonderful b/w image on the DVD re-mastering, is nothing short of superb, a joy to behold.Another IMDb review by: Terrell-4 summed it up quite well for me....FOOTNOTE: There is more than a passing resemblance to this film, and the 'el- cheapo' "Murder By Contract" that stared Vince Edwards in '58 (best thing about that one was the Music score by Perry Botkin Jr.)

"Can you imagine a world without men? No crime and lots of happy fat women." - Nicole HollanderHarder boiled than most hard boiled noirs, "This Gun For Hire" opens with Alan Ladd, who plays a small time assassin, tearing a woman's dress apart and then slapping her firmly across the face. But of course noirs have always had a misogynistic undercurrent. Your typical noir hero tends to fear and distrust women, even as his manly impulses drive him inexorably toward them. Cue the lusty, sexual vibes typical of the genre. Women in these films themselves tend to merely act out the roles that male authors and audiences require of them, not necessarily the roles they would actually play in real life.But what's funny about "This Gun For Hire" is the way all these "hard boiled" moments are calculatedly undercut. Our bad guy hero slaps women, but he also protects little kittens, our hero kills men, but he also helps little kids, our hero shoots women, but only because they're evil blackmailers. And on and on it goes. Our hero is a criminal, but he's doing a good deed by knocking off bad guys even worse than he is. Our hero is a kidnapper, but the woman he abducts falls in love with him. Every inch of the film seems designed to sanction what its film-makers, perhaps ashamedly, deem its more deplorable aspects.Still, "This Gun For Hire" is some kind of noir classic, thanks largely to the now iconic pairing of the voluptuous Veronica Lake – one of Hollywood's early blonde bombshell's – and Alan Ladd, who turns in a fine performance as a sleazy, mean, hard-as-nails killer. The duo's smouldering chemistry would lead to them appearing in a number of later noirs, including "The Glass Key" and "The Blue Dahlia". These films were often dubbed "Lake-Ladd" films, and today play like slightly poorer versions of the more famous "Bogart-Bacall" noirs."This Gun For Hire" was directed by Frank Tuttle. His direction is mostly generic, but the film has some morsels worth noting: Lake's character is bizarrely a magician, singer, damsel in distress and US secret agent, the film features a pretty good foot chase, Lake in semi-fetish/bondage wear (black latex and heels, and later all tied up on a couch) and two villainous noir stapes: the effeminate-evil-fat-guy and the old-villain-in-a-wheelchair-and-blanket cliché ("The Big Sleep", "The Big Lebowski" etc). Like many noirs of this period, the film's overall narrative arc is one which promotes patriotic duty; a rallying cry for American businessmen to "be good" and "not trade or sell secrets to evil foreign countries".Incidentally, "LA Confidential" features a brief scene in which a segment of "This Gun For Hire" is shown playing in the background. Kim Basinger's bosomy character in "LA Confidential", with her curly blonde locks, was modelled on Veronica Lake.7.9/10 – Worth one viewing. Makes a good companion piece to Jacques Tourneur's "Out of the Past".