This Gun for Hire (1942)

Frank Tuttle: This Gun for Hire (1942) with Alan Ladd (Philip Raven) and Veronica Lake (Ellen Graham).

Frank Tuttle: This Gun for Hire (1942) with Alan Ladd (Philip Raven) and Veronica Lake (Ellen Graham).

Il fuorilegge / Vainottu / Inringad!
    US 1942. D: Frank Tuttle. 81 min
    Sog.: dal romanzo A Gun for Sale (Una pistola in vendita, 1936) di Graham Greene, translated into Finnish as Takaa-ajettu by Pirjo Leppänen / Tammi (1981), lines from Tennyson's Maud by Aale Tynni. Scen.: Albert Maltz, W. R. Burnett. F.: John F. Seitz. M.: Archie Marshek. Scgf.: Hans Dreier, Robert Usher. Mus.: David Buttolph.
    Int.: Alan Ladd (Philip Raven), Veronica Lake (Ellen Graham), Robert Preston (Michael Crane), Laird Cregar (Willard Gates), Tully Marshall (Alvin Brewster), Marc Lawrence (Tommy).
    Prod.: Richard M. Blumenthal per Paramount Pictures. DCP
    Original songs: "Now You See It, Now You Don't" and "I've Got You" (lyr. Frank Loesser, comp. Jacques Press) perf. Veronica Lake (dubbed by Martha Mears).
    Finnish premiere: 17 May 1946, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Guns for Hire: Frank Tuttle vs. Stuart Heisler
    Print from NBC Universal by concession of Park Circus.
    In English with e-subtitles in Italian.
    Introduced by Ehsan Khoshbakht
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 26 Aug 2020

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): “Murder didn’t mean much to Raven. It was just a new job”. These lines open Graham Greene’s novel about an assassin with a cleft lip who is hired to kill a government minister, only to find himself double-crossed by his contractor. Enraged, he seeks revenge while the police are on his tail. Proving adept at translating many of the book’s details to the screen, Tuttle was also chiefly responsible for inventing cinema’s angelic killer, in the way he reshaped the image of the disfigured Raven into a shiningly handsome yet darkly destructive messenger of death. (The action was also transferred from pre-war England to wartime California). Given unprecedented freedom, Tuttle wrote a treatment based on the book, which Paramount obtained upon publication in 1936 but had abandoned as unfilmable. Tuttle also invited the communist writer Albert Maltz to work with him on the script, in what Maltz later called a “harmony of attitudes” – it was his first Hollywood assignment. And it was Tuttle who chose the unknown Alan Ladd for the leading role, sparing Raven any shocking disfigurement (only giving him a mild limp and a deformity of the wrist) yet revealing his dark past and violent persona without compromise. The film intensifies the latter by showing Raven killing a cop and strangling a cat. This unplanned shift of the film’s weight on to Raven displeased co-star Veronica Lake, adding to her estrangement from both Tuttle and Ladd. Despite the tensions on the set, the chemistry between the leading actors was clear to see when the dailies were viewed, so much so that they were cast in The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler) – the second of the four films in which they starred together – before This Gun opened in May 1942 to enormous success. Among the various tributes and remakes the most sublime remains Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï, whose placid killer is a reminder of how deeply rooted in filmic memory Tuttle’s creation of a new anti-hero for American cinema has become." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: Revisited: This Gun for Hire that I had not seen since its May 1980 telecast in Finland. Seen on a cinema screen, it has a much deeper impact. It is the best Frank Tuttle film I have seen.

In the role of Philip Raven Alan Ladd became a star, and his "angel killer" anti-hero interpretation gave a blueprint for future hitmen of the screen, including Chow Yun-fat in John Woo's The Killer (1989), Tom Cruise in Collateral (2004) and Ryan Gosling in Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive (2011).

Alan Ladd's approach of "slender ferocity", desolate determination und "unsmiling hardness" was original. He "never flirted or even seemed interested", yet became a romantic star. There were reasons for Raven's landing on the dark side. Subtle details signal that he is trapped in his solitude but sees no way out.

Veronica Lake was already an established star (I Wanted Wings, Sullivan's Travels), and her introduction as Ellen Graham in This Gun for Hire is one of the most electrifying in the cinema. The Ladd-Lake chemistry was so unmistakable that they appeared in seven films together. Lake provides a personal and mysterious incarnation of Hollywood glamour: at once plain and exciting, intelligent and alluring, impossible to define and pin down. The peek-a-boo hairstyle is a signal of that. Graham is a nightclub singer and magician who becomes a brave ally for the police. Her boyfriend is the policeman Michael Crane (Robert Preston).

Philip Raven and Ellen Graham are on opposite sides in many ways, yet they end up saving each other, and more: they save the US and perhaps the world by preventing strategic war secrets being leaked to Japan. This Gun for Hire is a perfect adventure in the underworld and a brilliant fairy-tale in which for instance the classic Hansel and Gretel motif of a trail of breadcrumbs appears in Ellen Graham's use of her monogrammed playing cards.

The villains are well cast. Laird Cregar is excellent as Willard Gates who hires Raven, pays him with counterfeit money and reveals to the police the numbers of the forged banknotes. As Mr. Big behind it all is none other than Tully Marshall in one of his last roles, bringing to his part resonances of Griffith, DeMille and Stroheim.

The thrilling plot is well written with constant "mission impossible" situations needing ingenious solutions. The story is based on the concept of "the chased chaser" like Hitchcock's films; Hitchcock may have been inspired by John Buchan's The 39 Steps (1915). The "no way out" mood is relevant to film noir's affinity with existentialism.

The romantic angle is special. There is no romantic relationship between the characters played by Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, but the sense of their romantic potential is overwhelming.

Frank Tuttle, a veteran in comedy and the musical, creates an ambiguous dream space to this film noir keywork. This Gun for Hire was not the first Graham Greene film adaptation, but it was the first big hit based on his work, soon followed by other adaptations, including Ministry of Fear, directed by Fritz Lang, also for Paramount.

A brilliant print from NBC Universal.