Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 24-June-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium

This Gun for Hire (1942)

If you were an actor with your first big movie role, wouldn't you love the credits to read "and introducing" before your name? It would announce to the world that you have arrived and will stick around for a while and are not playing just the "young man in store" or "irate neighbor" in the show. I think that would be so satisfying, especially if the movie was a smash and your career took off as promised. Such was the case with Alan Ladd in "This Gun for Hire." He was introduced to the world (after bit parts in films) in the notable role of a cold but sympathetic hit man. Bearing the ominous name of Raven, his character kills without remorse and smacks women around at will, apparently smothering the softer side which accounts for his love of cats. He is not a person one would want to double-cross, yet that's how the picture starts as the executives of a chemical company hire him to snuff somebody and then pay him with marked bills sought by the police.

As if to highlight Raven's nature through opposites, the cop on the case (Robert Preston) is a friendly, all-American fellow who proposes to his girl by saying, "Sugar, what does it take to get you to darn my socks [and] cook my corned beef and cabbage ...?" This girl, a magician-singer named Ellen (Veronica Lake), is sweet and lovely and blessed with loads of heart. She also has a conscience, so she agrees when a senator asks her to spy on the financier of her new show, who is suspected of treason. This financier just happens to be one of the executives pursued by Raven. Presto! Killer and lady meet on the train to Los Angeles and are forced to share the same dangerous road.

The movie (based on a story by Graham Greene) adds weight to its antihero by suggesting that he is made of finer material than the corporate traitors who used him to commit murder. It also gives Raven the chance to blossom under Ellen's eye. With her fearless common sense and unwavering decency, she exerts a lot of influence over a man who has never known female kindness from a mother or sister, friend or lover. (In fact, he was the victim of long-term child abuse.) Raven repeatedly puts Ellen at risk from himself and others, but she gets through to him even as she goes about her business. Whereas Lake's beauty is sometimes needed to overcome her laconic presence, Ladd justifies the fanfare of the credits by exuding a flinty cool that shades into hopeful purpose. You wouldn't want to meet Raven in an alley, but you sure enjoy watching him on this journey.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.