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This Gun For Hire

This Gun for Hire
This Gun For Hire movie poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Frank Tuttle
Produced by associate
Richard Blumenthal
Screenplay by Albert Maltz
W.R. Burnett
Based on novel A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
Starring Veronica Lake
Robert Preston
Laird Cregar
Alan Ladd
Music by David Buttolph
Cinematography John Seitz
Edited by Archie Marshek
Production
company
Paramount Puctures
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • May 13, 1942 (1942-05-13) (United States)
Running time
80 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget less than $500,000
Box office $1 million (US rentals)

This Gun for Hire is a 1942 film noir, directed by Frank Tuttle and based on the 1936 novel (published in America with the same title, and in Britain with the title A Gun for Sale) by Graham Greene. The film stars Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, and Alan Ladd. The movie made a star of Alan Ladd.

In wartime San Francisco, chemist and blackmailer Albert Baker (Frank Ferguson) is killed by hit man Philip Raven (Alan Ladd), who recovers a stolen chemical formula. Raven is double-crossed by his employer, Willard Gates (Laird Cregar), who pays him with marked bills and reports them to the Los Angeles Police Department as stolen from his company, Nitro Chemical Corporation of Los Angeles. Raven learns of the set up and decides to get revenge. LAPD detective lieutenant Michael Crane (Robert Preston), who is vacationing in San Francisco to visit his girlfriend, nightclub singer Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake), is immediately assigned the case. He goes after Raven, but the assassin eludes him.

Meanwhile, Gates hires Ellen to work in his LA nightclub. She is taken to a clandestine meeting with Senator Burnett (Roger Imhof), where she learns that Gates and Nitro Chemical are under investigation as suspected traitors, and is recruited to spy on Gates. She and Gates board a train for Los Angeles, followed by Raven. By chance, Raven and Ellen sit next to each other. The next morning, Gates is alarmed when he sees them asleep with Raven's head on her shoulder. He wires ahead to alert the police, but Raven forces Ellen at gunpoint to help him elude them again. He is about to kill her but is interrupted by workmen, allowing Ellen to flee. She tries to contact Crane, but he has left San Francisco to return to LA.


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