This Gun for Hire (1942)

There's something about this time of year that makes me want to watch more film-noir. It's strange because when it comes to noir, I'm a pretty light-weight viewer, but I've already seen two in the last week and I'm craving more. There's just something about the moody photography and sharp dialogue that fits so perfectly with a cold winter night and a mug of hot chocolate.

My first noir this winter was This Gun for Hire, a film that kind of breaks my heart because it had so much potential. You've got a hard killer (Alan Ladd), who shows tantalizing snatches of humanity in the first half of the picture; a cute and savvy nightclub singer (Veronica Lake); and Lake's fiancé, who also happens to be the cop assigned to bring Ladd to justice.

The first half of the film was easily the best: the story moved along at a brisk pace, the characters and relationships were set up quickly and acted well, and I couldn't wait to see what would happen when everyone started getting mixed up in each other's business. I especially wanted to see the development of the relationships between the leading trio. This is the only time I can remember actually wanting a love triangle in a story. Usually I think a love triangle is just a waste of time, but this one actually had a lot of dramatic potential.

So here's what I wanted to happen: Ladd and Lake's respective missions get mixed up together as they realize a mutual attraction and she starts to thaw his cold personality, but she's conflicted because of her love for Preston; slowly she starts protecting Ladd from Preston, while, at the same time, trying to convince Ladd to turn himself in. Jealousy, betrayal, heartbreak. That's what I wanted. What I got was Ladd turning into a tortured little boy, sapping out all of the dramatic tension that had been built up in the first half of the film.

It would be easy to blame Ladd for the downturn in quality, since he goes from a reasonably good portrayal to an embarrassing display of overacting. I'm heaping all my scorn on screenwriters Albert Maltz and W.R. Burnett, though. It's seems they felt the audience should know why Ladd's character is the way he is, when the truth is that I was only interested in what he could be in the future. I didn't give two hoots about his past, but I ended up sitting through Ladd's overacted exposition anyway. From there, the character of Raven lost all of the intensity that had so fascinated me before. I curse the minute that Ladd and Lake went into that shack! True, that wasn't where the story really started to go wrong, but it's where his character really lost it.

Oh, yeah. I also blame director Frank Tuttle for not reining Ladd in during that final half. The first half of the movie had shown he was capable, but something happened in the middle. That change in the character could never be good, but it would have been better if Ladd hadn't suddenly changed his approach to the character. I think I might have gotten whiplash from that quick turn-around.

And the relationship between the three leads? It went nowhere, and I mean nowhere: not the Sahara, not Iceland - shoot, they didn't even go to Smallville. They just stayed there in the land of the Undeveloped, and by doing so, they started to lose interest for me. The only character that actually grew or changed in any way was Raven, and, although I may take issue with how quickly he changed and what he turned into, I see what the screenwriters were going for. I just think it could've been done so much better.

I don't think Lake was a necessarily good actress, but the times that I've seen her, she's been adequate. She just never seems to put in that extra effort and make me relate to her, and I think she mostly depends on her charisma - which does have a strange attraction - to carry her through her movies. Oddly, I think her character in This Gun for Hire was the only one that wasn't stabbed in the back by Maltz and Burnett. While she didn't get as much conflict or development as I would have liked, she was consistently smart and relatable. Well... okay, I'll admit that I'm ignoring her final line at the very end of the movie. That just seemed to out of place.

If Ladd was given too much development (such as it was), and Lake wasn't given enough, Robert Preston was downright ignored. A potentially compelling character was reduced to a plot device, and a very good actor was wasted. Oh, the thought of what could have been! How much would I have loved to see Preston fight to keep his girl's heart instead of just her life? But, no, he was given nothing to do but play the big, perfect hero - no emotional conflict necessary for that. Grr. The thought that they had Preston and didn't use him properly just burns me up inside. Despite the lack of conflict, Preston probably gave the most reliable performance of the three actors, though. He worked with what he had, which wasn't much, and he didn't change gears halfway through. His performance was solid but mostly unremarkable if not for the fact that I know he could have been amazing, and, no, this is not an instance where an actor could've put in a little more effort to steal the show - he wasn't given enough screen time for that! Grr. I may need to go watch The Music Man (1962) for the five-hundredth time, just to ease my sense of injustice. Hey, any excuse, right?

As I said in the beginning of this (very long) review, This Gun for Hire breaks my heart with all of its untapped potential. A much more compelling story could have been told in the same amount of time. I certainly don't regret watching this film; I actually thought during the first half that it was on its way to being exceptional. Still, that last half was downright painful at times, so I'll try to remember all of the good things and forget the rest.

All images via Doctor Macro.