The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

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.

Preston may get top-billing, but it's clearly Ladd's picture. It's Raven's (Ladd) twisty redemption from bad guy to almost good that dominates both the screenplay and the screen. Actually, most any handsome man could have played Preston's conventional cop. My guess is Paramount used his billing to buttress the then unknown Ladd. For sure, pairing Ladd with Lake was a touch of casting genius. Not only are their diminutive blond looks in sync but their styles also jibe. Thus, Raven's emotionless demeanor's a perfect fit for the famously self-doubting actor. Still, both here and in later career, Ladd's distant presence spoke much more than his acting.Five-years later and the movie would have been full-blown noir. Here, the screenplay has to blend in what appears a last minute patriotic theme. Likely the 1942 script had to make a quick adjustment to 1941's Pearl Harbor, thereby removing noir's background ambiguities. There's one really unexpected event that singles out the movie in my book, at least. It's shockingly abrupt and outside the norms of of even noir protagonists . My favorite parts are the chase scenes through LA's industrial sites, which are occasionally nightmarish, despite Tuttle's generally uninspired direction. Likely, he was hampered by an awkward script, which may be a key reason the narrative fails to build overall tension despite the many promising ingredients. Those include a deliciously effete Laird Cregar whose character is probably too flighty to furnish needed bad guy menace. At the same time, tough guy Marc Lawrence is largely wasted in a semi-comical role. Also, don't look for Lake's trademark forelock, though her natural appeal shines through anyway.Overall, the drama's a precursor of post-war noir with a cast the has proved more memorable than the movie itself.

In spite of its flaws and inconsistencies - For me, this tough, and decidedly gritty, little, 1942 Crime/Drama was something of an unexpected surprise, as it turned out to be a whole lot better than I had originally thought it would be.The overall success of this film's story relied significantly on the relative new-comer to the scene, actor Alan Ladd.For a man of such small stature as Ladd (he was only 5' 5"), he certainly managed to deliver quite a towering, multi-leveled portrayal of the Philip Raven character, a friendless, cold-blooded, professional killer with a clear soft-spot for cats and kids.Without a hitch Ladd certainly pulled off his complex part convincingly with a fine flair for understanding his character.As the story goes - Raven (who was one of the most unromantic, unglamorous, hard-boiled protagonists to ever play on screen) is double-crossed and set up for termination by his most recent client. It's only a matter of time before Raven is put out of action for good.To avenge himself Raven must track down and eliminate, with extreme prejudice, those who want him out of the picture, permanently.Intelligent, well-scripted, and quick-paced, "This Gun For Hire" was adapted for the screen from the Graham Greene novel, "A Gun For Sale".Filmed in stark b&w, this classic slice of early, Hollywood, Film Noir moves along at a nice, brisk clip with its 80 minute running time.

Nice tale of Alan Ladd as an all-business bravo. He rubs out somebody for Laird Cregar but Cregar double crosses him, tips the police and they're after Ladd. And Ladd is after Cregar and after the old dude who hired Cregar as well, the motive being revenge. It all has to do with the fact that the ancient tycoon has funded the invention of a poison gas which he has sold on the global spot market to the highest bidder, in this case the Japanese.Kids, this was 1942, see, and the United States was at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy. So selling poison gas to our enemy was not the most patriotic thing to do. Also it was illegal. That makes Laird Cregar and all those associated with him -- whether ancient boss or tough subordinate -- traitors. Look up "traitor" in the dictionary. You can see here how it's spelled. PS: We won the war.Well, Laird Cregar may be a fat and unscrupulous eater of peppermints but he's the most interesting character in the movie. There are no more gripping shots in cinema than the ultra-short Alan Ladd standing next to the abundance of Laird Cregar. He's a Mount Everest of Jello. He shivers with fear when his body guard, Marc Lawerence, describes with relish what's going to happen to Veronica Lake's dead body after it settles to the bottom of the reservoir, weighted down with iron. "It's revolting," he wheezes. What I'm getting at is that the writers have provided the movie with one of the essentials of any successful production -- the interesting villain.Ladd is kind of interesting too, but not so much. He's a killer because he was beaten as a child. (Ho hum.) I made a point of beating my kid every day whether he needed it or not. That kid is a famous orthodontist today. He never kills anybody, though he does smile slightly when he plies his syringes, hacksaws, and monkey wrenches and watches his patients writhe and scream.In any case, Ladd develops a sympathetic friendship with Veronica Lake. They belong together. Ladd was five feet, six inches tall. Lake was four feet, eleven. Neither was a bravura performer but they got the job done. Robert Preston appears as the police lieutenant who is engaged to Lake. Preston had a film career that lasted from 1938 to 1985. That's pretty long. He played everything from treacherous villains to musical comedy.Actually it's a pretty enjoyable movie with some nice location shooting and particularly effective lighting and photography. Shot in Los Angeles, there are few middle-class houses here, but rather gas works, industrial plants, and railroad yards. The imagery carries a lot of unusual texture.