In honor of ‘The Killer’: Celebrating Alan Ladd in ‘This Gun For Hire’

Susan King
·5 min read

Michael Fassbender is the latest actor to join the assassination bureau in David Fincher’s slick Netflix thriller “The Killer,” which Variety reported earned a “respectable” five-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. Based on the French comic book written by Alexis Nolent and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, “The Killer” finds Fassbender’s hit man as a loner who talks to himself a lot and listens to music while he disposes of his latest victim. But he doesn’t always get his man or woman. In fact, the film opens with setting up the kill shot only to shoot and miss. And he spends the rest of the movie trying to set things right as the body count grows. Though he seems to have no personality, the killer does have a sense of humor; among his alias are Oscar Madison, Felix Unger and George Jefferson.

Over the decades, filmmakers and actors have been drawn to the assassin genre. And for good reason. It’s a chance to delve into characters who have chosen to kill for their living. They are often simple and highly complex. Who can forget Alain Delon’s hit man who lives by the bushido code in Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 “Le Samourai” or Edward Fox’s ice-cold sophisticate in 1973’s “The Day of the Jackal”? Not all assassin movies are all doom and gloom. John Huston’s 1985 “Prizzi’s Honor” is a darkly comedic gem starring Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner as assassins and lovers who learn they must kill each other.

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Alan Ladd became a star and heartthrob playing a killer named Raven in 1942’s noir classic “This Gun for Hire.” The 5’6” blond, blue-eyed actor had been kicking around Hollywood for nearly a decade mainly in uncredited parts — he’s one of the reporters in 1941’s “Citizen Kane” — occasionally getting credit such as in 1941’s “The Black Cat” and 1942’s “Joan of Paris.” The New York Times wrote: “He had been trying to get a foothold in pictures for eight years, but received no encouragement, although he tried every angle known to town-extra work, bit parts, stock contracts, dramatic schools, [and] assault of the casting offices Sue Carol, the former silent film star who is now his agent, undertook to advance the youth’s career two years ago and only recently could she locate an attentive ear. Then, the breaks began.” (Ladd would marry Carol that year).

Based on the Graham Greene novel, adapted by W.R. Burnett of “Little Caesar” and “The Asphalt Jungle” fame and Albert Maltz, who would be one of the Hollywood Ten. and directed by Frank Tuttle, “This Gun for Hire” finds Raven seeking revenge on the client (Laird Cregar) who hired him to murder a scientist and his secretary. Robert Preston plays the police detective assigned to the case. And the red-hot Veronica Lake plays Preston’s girlfriend working as a magician in Cregar’s nightclub.

You can’t keep your eyes off Ladd. With his hair dyed dark brown to give him a more menacing countenance. Ladd channels the ruthless Raven. However, he imbues the character with a bit of humanity. Raven does love the stray kitten he has adopted and gets violent if anyone tries to touch the animal. And when a little girl sitting in the stairwell of an apartment complex sees his face after he makes a kill, Raven decides not to dispose of the young witness.

Paramount realized during production that Ladd was knocking it out of the park, so they reworked the script to give him more scenes. The diminutive Lake was already a major player at Paramount thanks to 1941’s “I Wanted Wings” and Preston Sturges’ “Sullivan’s Travels.” But pairing her with Ladd was a stroke of genius. TCM.com noted that “physically, she matched up well with Ladd: together they projected an icy magnetism with an undercurrent of sexual tension. The combination proved irresistible to movie-goers.” In fact, they would end up making a total of seven films together including 1942’s “The Glass Key” and 1946’s “The Blue Dahlia.”

Lake wrote in her autobiography: “Alan was a marvelous person in his simplicity. In so many ways we were kindred spirits…And we were both little [in size] people. It was true that in certain films in which his leading lady was on the tallish size, Alan would climb onto a small platform, or the girl worked in a slit trench. We had no such problems working together. Both of us were very aloof…It enabled us to work together very easily and without friction or temperament.”

The New York Times was enthusiastic in its praise for Ladd: “One shudders to think of the career which Paramount must have in mind for Alan Ladd, a new actor, after witnesses the young gentleman’s debut as a leading player in that studio’s ‘This Gun for Hire” …. Obviously, they have tagged him to be the toughest monkey on the loose on the screen…He is really an actor to watch. After this stinging performance, he has something to live up to-or live down.”

“Many film critics and historians still feel it is Ladd’s best performance,” said TCM.com, “even better than his heroic role as ‘Shane.’ It would also be the last time Ladd would be cast as a murderer.

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