Phillip Raven (Alan Ladd) is a hit-man hired by Willard Gates (Laird Cregar) to execute the blackmailer Albert Baker (Frank Ferguson) and retrieve a letter and some documents for his unknown boss. When the work is done, Raven is double-crossed by Gates, receiving marked ten dollar bills. Gates delivers the list with the serial number of the bills to the police, expecting they find and kill Raven. Meanwhile, the performer Ellen Graham (Veronika Lake),who is the fiancée of the L.A Detective Lieutenant Michael Crane (Robert Preston),is contacted by Senator Burnett (Roger Imhof) and asked to help investigating Gates. She accepts the invitation, and is hired by Gates to work in his private club in Los Angeles. The police force, leaded by Det. Crane, chases Raven for the death of Baker; Raven chases Gates and his unknown boss, expecting to kill them for their betrayal; Ellen secretly chases Gates for the government. This is the beginning of a great classic. Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake have fantastic performances in this movie. Alan Ladd is magnificent in the role of a cold blood killer, needy of a friend, that loves cats. In order to show the personality of his character, there is a scene in the beginning of the story, where he almost shoots a crippled girl to eliminate any possible witness of his murder. Veronika Lake is wonderful and very gorgeous, inclusive singing two songs. I disagree with the reference of film-noir for "This Gun For Hire", since there is no "femme-fatale", no dirty cop, no weak man (other than Gates) or sordid motivation. Indeed it is a police story, showing a cold-blood hit-man without compassion, capable of killing without showing any emotion, hunting "worse guys" looking for his personal vengeance. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Alma Torturada" ("Tortured Soul")

This was a break-out film for Alan Ladd. Up until then, he'd just been performing bit roles. Here, he is given 3rd billing, but he clearly is the star of the film.

Ladd plays a sociopathic hit-man who seems to have not one ounce of compassion for anyone--except animals. After fulfilling a contract, he meets with the super-sleazy guy who hired him (Laird Cregar) to get paid. Creger is great--he just drips sleaze and menace as well as cowardice! And, being a sleaze, he tries to get Ladd arrested by giving him money that was supposedly stolen. This point in the film actually made no sense--there was no reason to do this AND Ladd could always tell the cops about Creger.

Miraculously, Ladd escapes arrest and vows to kill Creger and the mystery man he was working for but who was not yet revealed. He meets up with Veronica Lake and she helps him escape. Now the ironies involving him meeting up with Lake is way over the top. She is ALREADY working secretly for the government spying on Creger AND her boyfriend just happens to be the cop leading the investigation of Ladd. This and the stolen money aspect bring the overall rating down to an 8--this film could have earned a 10 due to Ladd's characterization and the interesting plot (much of the time).

Instead of continuing to telling you the rest of the story and spoiling it, I will just point out that the actual story is deeper and involves selling poison gas to our enemy--the Japanese. It is then a propaganda film AND a Film Noir flick--a pretty good combination all-in-all.

Alan Ladd in his film debut. He and Veronica Lake together in their first collaboration of four films (the others being 'The Glass Key', 'The Blue Dahlia' and 'Saigon', the last of which the only one to not be a film noir),all at least watchable and serve them well. My love for film noir, though one could argue that the film predates it and that there are noir-ish elements. A film based on the novel 'A Gun for Sale' by one of the literary greats Graham Greene.

They are reasons enough to see any film, let alone 'This Gun for Hire'. 'This Gun for Hire' to me was an excellent film, with a huge amount to recommend it. Not quite a masterpiece but close, and its mostly positive reputation is more than understandable and am more than glad to be part of the positivity. A film most notable for the performances of the cast and its stylishness, though a lot is right with it.

From personal tastes, the ending was a touch on the heavy handed, the patriotic element being somewhat of an awkward fit, and over-sentimental side. Other than that, 'This Gun for Hire' is a winner.

Ladd's film debut is quite wonderful, can't believe it was actually a debut when he gave a performance of such icy steel. Liked a good deal of what he did and it was sad that he died too young, and still consider his performance here one of his best as one of his most demanding and most intriguing characters. Lake brings iciness, charm and vulnerability to her role and is a more than good match for Ladd, their chemistry sizzles (though it sizzles even more in 'The Blue Dahlia'). Laird Cregar plays an utter slimeball to perfection. All the cast are strong but Ladd, Lake and Cregar are the standouts here.

Credit is also due to Frank Tuttle in some of the best directing, whether visually, in direction of the cast and in keeping the story interesting and tight (all of which done never less than very well),of his career. Don't think he ever did better actually. 'This Gun for Hire' looks good, nicely shot with a lot of atmosphere. The script is taut and has an appropriate hard edge and the storytelling, while not quite as deep or as thrilling as Greene's source material, flies by and has the right amount of tension. At less than 80 minutes, would usually find that too short a length for a film but this is a not so common case of the length not being a problem.

In conclusion, excellent. 9/10