This Gun for Hire (1942)
1942 · Feature film · 81 min · dir. Frank Tuttle
A Lone Wolf…dynamite with a girl or a gun!
- Drama
- film noir
- Crime
Synopsis
Sadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.
Synopsis from TMDb
Details
- Director
- Frank Tuttle
- Writer
- Graham Greene
- Composer
- David Buttolph
- Cinematography
- John F. Seitz
- Studio
- Paramount Pictures
- Released
- 1942-04-24
- Running time
- 81 minutes
Cast & crew
Frank Tuttle Director- list of American supercentenarians
Frank Ferguson
Harry Shannon
Frances Morris
Emmett Vogan
Eddy Chandler
George Magrill
Charles C. Wilson
Reviews on the Internet Archive
★★★★★ · Hire · rhinohouse · 2023-05-04
Superb cast with a plot with plenty of twists & turns. Alan Ladd & Veronica Lake are dynamite together. And Robert Preston-"We got trouble-right here in River City!" Yes!
★★★ · Worth watching for Ladd's performance · GH3K3 · 2026-07-02
Here's the set up; 'Raven,' Ladd's character, is a cold-blooded sociopath with childhood PTSD issues, and Veronica Lake unwittingly becomes his redemption figure after she volunteers to help Uncle Sam take down a fat, effeminate, mint-gobbling industrialist/night club owner selling secret formulas to the Japs. I guess this is Graham Greene being ironic again, with the U.S. having to be saved by cheap blonde floozy and a murdering psychopath. Nevertheless, Alan Ladd steals the movie completely, and Robert Preston, Lake's love interest, is completely overshadowed. The weakness is the script, I…
