This Gun For Hire (Universal Noir Collection)
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Movie Reviews of This Gun For Hire (Universal Noir Collection)
Movie Review: Raven; A Disturbed Creation of Volatility
Summary: 4 Stars
"This Gun For Hire" is a watered down, glammed up version of Graham Greene's novel A Gun for Sale. It represents the first of four cinematic outings that teamed sultry Veronica Lake with the stoically handsome Alan Ladd, a potent cocktail of personalities that proved to be much in demand over the next decade. Perhaps a tad heavy on sentimentality than most film noirs, the plot concerns Philip Raven's (Ladd) obsession with Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake) a nightclub dancer with a rough and rumble cop boyfriend, Michael Crane (Robert Preston). Ellen is supposed to be working on exposing Alvin Brewster (Tully Marshall), a chemical company CEO who sold poisonous gas to the Japanese. But an odd and Freudian driven relationship surfaces between Ellen and Raven when she senses his childhood pain and angst. Ellen becomes Raven's willing captive, in the process transcending his nightmares and making him more human. The very first scene in this film is so incredibly chilling it begs special mention. After having been double crossed by ne'er-do-well, Williard Gates (Laird Cregar), Raven (Ladd) contemplates killing an innocent little girl who has seen him. Even though the resulting decision is typical "golden age" morality, Ladd makes one believe, if only for a moment, that such cold blooded silencing might be possible.THE TRANSFER: Universal's DVD transfer is remarkably solid and clean. The gray scale is very well balanced with deep solid blacks and whites that are almost pristine. There's a hint film grain and some age related artifacts. Also, some edge enhancement and pixelization occur, but nothing that will distract from a visual presentation that is a considerable improvement over previously issued VHS tapes. The audio is mono and very well represented. There are no extras on this disc. Nevertheless, it is a good disc to add to your library of classic cinema.
Movie Review: Don't flinch............
Summary: 4 Stars
The collaborative skills of screenwriter Albert Maltz and director Frank Tuttle brought us one of the more effective `we-hooked-you-now' openings to be found in film. The first 10 minutes or so have you completely fixated on the character Philip Raven (Alan Ladd). You can't not watch him. It's not so much what he does (although what he does, shocks), it's who he is. If a portrayal of ice was the objective, it was overachieved. Calculating and emotionless-it's all in the eyes. Not a lot of acting going on here, doesn't seem so anyway. More like-REAL. And that would be the magic in all of this movie making stuff, wouldn't it? I didn't count them, but I'd be surprised if Raven said more than 30 words in those first scenes. Is this to be our future Old Yeller guy? Hollywood hits, Hollywood misses.
Veronica Lake and Robert Preston are top billed in This Gun for Hire with Ladd "introduced" (in big letters). Make no mistake, Ladd rules in this film if only through simple captivation. The story itself might have been better landscaped and fleshed out, milking the Ladd-Lake formula for all its worth. There was more to be had there, or maybe I just wanted more. Not just volume, range.
Preston the solid actor, and I do consider if the future professor Harold Hill of River City was a best choice here. The contrast between Michael Crane (Preston) and Raven could not have been sharper. Maybe that was part of the plan, a mix not foreign to Noir-play the honorable chump against the razor. And then, again revealed, the side of woman that finds the life-hardened self-absorbed bad guy loser to be the inescapable magnet. Always interesting, that one, and very often all too real.
This Gun for Hire is a keeper. Corruption, treason, blackmail, murder, WW-2 backdrop......what else, oh yeah, good guy, bad guy, woman needing to choose but caught up in predictable formula. And, no way, he's not going to ice that innocent little girl sitting on the stairs-he wouldn't. The flinch. You'll want more, and if like me, maybe you'll wonder if Alan Ladd might have better benefited the movie-going world by staying typed as case-hardened steel.
Movie Review: This Gun for Hire
Summary: 5 Stars
Wonderful character actor Laird Cregar plays the oily and overfed Broadway angel and hulking Lothario to singing magician Veronica Lake. By day he's a squeamish schemer, eager to contract out crime most foul just so long as he isn't subjected to recitals of any disturbing details. That he'd double cross Alan Ladd's Raven was as inevitable as his bedtime box of mints and book of racy French stories. That Raven would resent it was unfortunate, indeed.
Cregar died at the tender age of 30, two years after THIS GUN FOR HIRE was released. For old movie fans unfamiliar with him, he was a combination of a bulked up Vincent Price and Sydney Greenstreet with a little more bounce in his step.
As delightful as Cregar is, discussion of THIS GUN FOR HIRE starts and stops with Alan Ladd, who catapulted to stardom with his portrayal of the cold-blooded killer Raven. The emblematic scene occurs early on, when the hired Ladd enters an apartment building to fulfill his end of the contract. He meets a young girl wearing leg braces as he walks up the stairs. What occurs next, and continues on until he leaves the building, is simply a brilliant bit of minimalist screen acting. Raven's face is an expressionless, cold-blooded, inscrutable mask. Ladd plays the sequence almost solely with his eyes. They dart menacingly from the crippled girl to the apartment door, assessing the risks, flashing for a split second before smoldering to a colder temperature. It's a justifiably famous scene, one of the best tough guy sequences ever, a star maker.
The plot bends and twists just enough to throw Ladd and Lake together for most of the last half of the movie. She a hostage with a secret or two, he obsessed with getting back at Cregar. The camera liked what it saw when they shared a frame. Ladd and Lake oozed chemistry, enough for a handful of future teamings. Their characters dance an uneasy minuet in this one - Ladd never lets Lake's considerable charms breach his tough guy shell, she's reminded more than once why he's named for a ruthless carrion killer. The only time this movie stumbles, I believe, is when Ladd talks about the "psych-something doctor" who can make his bad dreams go away. By then the movie was in a hurry to get to the final scene, and it needed to humanize Ladd some before getting there. Still, it feels awkward and stilted.
THIS GUN FOR HIRE is an exceptional movie, one of the best tough-guy crime thrillers ever made.
Movie Review: Alan Ladd + Veronica Lake = screen magic!
Summary: 5 Stars
While some scenes of this exceptional early example of film noir are a little slow, the scenes with Alan Ladd & Veronica Lake are awesome & that's why this classic deserves 5 stars. I was surprised that Alan Ladd, although portraying a hired killer, is almost a semi-hero at the end when he seeks revenge on the evil thug who set him up. Universal released several classic film noirs on dvd this past July, & this along with "Criss Cross" are outstanding. There are two scenes in "This Gun For Hire" that are unforgettable: the beginning where Ladd brutally shoots a man he was hired to kill. When Ladd discovers a woman in the room, he shoots her too, although reluctantly. I'm surprised they included such a brutal scene in a 1940s movie, but it's very effective. The other unforgettable scene is the desperate chase where Ladd is running from the police & jumps off a bridge & lands on a train. I hope that Universal will release the other film noirs with Alan Ladd & Veronica Lake ("The Glass Key" & "The Blue Dahlia") soon on dvd. This classic crime drama takes several viewings to be fully appreciated & it's essential to any film noir buff's collection.Movie Review: A Satisfying Ladd/Lake Noir
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a straight-forward, linear, quick-moving story based on a much more interesting book. But it's still an entertaining movie, and probably close to required viewing if you enjoy noir and/or Forties movies.
Raven (Alan Ladd) is a hired killer, evidently without remorse or nerves, who is paid to knock off a blackmailer. The blackmailer was trying to take to the cleaners a corrupt industrialist who was coincidentally helping the enemy. (This is during WWII.) However, Raven is paid in counterfeit bills on the assumption the police will catch him when he spends the money. He discovers the plot and decides to take out the guy who hired him and the fellow, the industrialist, who was behind it all.
The movie bills Veronica Lake and Robert Preston above the title, Laird Cregar just below the title, and Alan Ladd last in big type as "Introducing Alan Ladd." Some introduction; according to IMDb, Ladd had already appeared in more than 40 films in unbilled and minor parts.
This was Ladd's breakthrough movie and he's very good in it. I don't think he was much of an actor, but he had a lot of star presence, especially in the movies he made in the Forties. There was always something passive but potentially dangerous about him. His looks could have kept him in the pretty boy category, but for whatever reason didn't. Veronica Lake, for me, is something of an acquired taste, but for whatever reason she and Ladd made an effective pairing that was repeated several times. Laird Cregar played the heavy, and he was an interesting actor. Big and fleshy, he was something of a Raymond Burr type but more versatile. Robert Preston is seldom mentioned in regard to this movie and this must have ticked him off. Here's a guy who usually played best friend of the lead, gets a good part as the lead in a solid movie -- and winds up being over-shadowed by Ladd.
The first five minutes or so of the movie are among the most efficient I've come across in establishing a major player's character and complexities. We first see Raven waking up in his rented rooms and checking the clock. Nothing out of the ordinary there. In very short order, however, he's taken a gun out, helped a stray kitten get into his room and given it some food, slapped hard and full in the face a maid who tried to kick out the cat, showed up at the blackmailer's place where he meets the blackmailer (who was supposed to be alone); the blackmailer has his "secretary" with him so he just kills them both; on the way out a little girl on the stairs asks him to get her ball which has rolled away; she sees his face, he obviously thinks about shooting her, too -- but gets the ball for her and leaves. In just a few minutes Raven's cold ruthlessness and his conflicts are established, and so is a sort of sympathy for him. These first few minutes, in my view, are what make the movie work.
The DVD transfer is very good. There are no extras.
I hope sometime soon we get DVDs of two other first rate Ladd/Lake noir pairings, The Glass Key and The Blue Dahlia.