This Gun for Hire

I’m not a Veronica Lake guy.  A human charisma sump who nearly torpedoed Sullivan’s Travels, this hairstyle with a mannequin under it sleepwalks through This Gun for Hire as if she’s on gin, or quaaludes, or both.  Pair her with Alan Ladd as an antihero with absolutely zero redeeming qualities, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately, This Gun for Hire features Robert Preston as the police lieutenant out to catch the evil Ladd and save Ms. Lake.  Even though the great actor’s forced to recite lines like “I want you to darn my socks for me.  To wash my floors and make my corned beef and cabbage,” and even though he’s forced to act like he’s attracted to Lake, there’s no denying his irrepressible charisma.  For every moment Lake brings the film to a halt, Preston fires it right back up again and keeps us in the game.

The story?  Oh, some noirish nonsense about men in fedoras and doublecrosses and spies and poison gas.  It clicks along ok, enlivened by excellent character work from the aforementioned Preston, Marc Lawrence as a henchman who takes particular pride in his work, Laird Cregar as an amorous nightclub owner, and Tully Marshall as the mastermind of the aforementioned spies and poison gas storyline.

One could imagine this movie with Barbara Stanwyck or Lana Turner – what a joy that would have been.  Unfortunately, with Veronica Lake front and center, it doesn't quite work.  How did this woman get a career, anyway?

Appointment with Danger

Appointment with Danger is a great movie.

Here’s the deal: It’s Gary, Indiana in 1951.  A nun has just seen Jack Webb and Harry Morgan strangle a man, but she doesn’t know it.  It’s raining and her umbrella’s jammed and she buys Morgan’s excuse that the victim’s had too much to drink and they’re “helping him get some air.”  The nun suspect’s something’s up and tells the next beat cop she sees, but he’s quickly distracted and nothing comes of it.  The next morning, a body in an alley turns out to be a postal inspector (FYI, the postal inspectors were America’s first federal law enforcement officers.  They’re a legitimate organization.).  Cue Alan Ladd, the best but meanest postal inspector of ‘em all, to piece together the clues, find the bad guys, and ring down the curtain.

That’s the first five minutes.  The rest of the film is moody black and white, men in fedoras and women in slinky dresses, and exchanges like, “Do you even know what love is?”  “Sure.  It’s what happens between a man and a .45 that won’t jam.”

Webb and Morgan, who went on to make television history as the cops in “Dragnet,” make convincing and dangerous villains.  Alan Ladd is clearly having the time of his life as a hard man who who gets to deliver lines like “I don’t have a heart.  I have a muscle in my chest.  When a postal inspector dies, they don’t say his heart stopped.  They say he got a charley horse.”  And Paul Stewart, one of the great character actors, delivers a mastermind who’s smart, ruthless, and flawed enough to make him interesting.

Appointment with Danger has fistfights and innuendo, car chases and shootouts.  It also has a watertight plot and great photography.  Further, it takes advantage of its unique location, snappy dialogue, and a wonderful sense of what makes a noir picture great.  Appointment with Danger works in every way.