This film is notable for several reasons. It is often referred to as a classic film noir, beautifully shot in black and white by director, Frank Tuttle. It is an adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel, ‘A Gun for Sale’, which was published in America under the title that the film adopted. It introduced Alan Ladd who went on to become a major star and was the first of seven screen pairings that he would make with Veronica Lake. Perhaps the most interesting observation about this film is that it lacks an obvious hero.

Ladd plays Philip Raven, a professional hitman who cares more for cats than people. He has no scruples about killing women and, at one point in the film, he even appears to consider killing a disabled child who is a witness to his presence at a location that is about to become a crime scene. There is not much to like about him and yet he is the real protagonist of the story. Robert Preston, who had top billing alongside Veronica Lake, plays a police detective on Raven’s trail, but he really does not contribute much to the film.

There is a notable degree of coincidence in the film, probably more than a modern audience would accept, but it helps to move the plot along at a brisk pace. Veronica Lakes’ Ellen Graham also seems a bit of a stretch as a singing magician, but she develops an interesting chemistry with Ladd that allows for a credible bond to grow between her and Raven. In an interesting scene, Raven explains to Ellen how he came to have a broken wrist, a feature that is being used by the police to identify him. This experience explains why he is so cold to other people and Raven avoids trying to use it to justify his profession. Ellen seems to see in him a man who lost his way when young and who might be saved. Raven has no such delusions, however.

I found the involvement of foreign agents in pursuit of a poison gas to be used by Japan against America rather tenuous, but it probably seemed entirely credible in 1942. The ending is what you would expect in this type of film, lots of bullets and blood, but Raven’s fate is not presented as an act of redemption; he still manages to shoot at the law enforcement agents who are chasing him, even after the real villains have been dealt with. In respect of the war effort, the film lacks any kind of jingoism. In fact if it was not for the reference to Japanese agents in the script then the war would not be relevant to the story at all as no Japanese of oriental actors appear in the film.

This Gun for Hire is not a typical film noir at all. Robert Preston’s Detective Crane does not demonstrate any remarkable deductive abilities in his attempts to catch Raven. Laird Creger as Gates, Ravens’ backstabbing employer, is never intimidating, even when Ellen falls into his clutches. Although Veronica Lake’s Ellen has the appearance of a femme fatale, she is less dangerous than Gates. What it does have going for it though is Alan Ladds’ remarkable ice cold presentation of his character and the development of a believable relationship with Veronica Lake’s Elllen.