By David in TN
Friday, October 18, 2019 at 8:28:00 P.M. EDT
This Gun for Hire (1942). This film was Alan Ladd’s first big role and was the first teaming of Ladd with Veronica Lake. It stars Ladd, Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, and Mark Lawrence, directed by Frank Tuttle.
Film Noir Guide: “Ladd is a cat-loving hit man who’s out to get the client who betrayed him by paying him in marked bills. Cregar, delightfully despicable as Ladd’s double-crossing client, works for a chemical company that's selling secrets to the Japanese. Veteran baddy Lawrence plays his goon. Because of her connection to Cregar, nightclub performer Lake is approached by a U.S. Senator, who convinces her to work undercover to help prove that Cregar and his boss are traitors. Her mission is so top secret that she can’t even tell her detective boyfriend (Preston) about it. On the train to Los Angeles, she’s taken hostage by Ladd and soon discovers that there’s a dark, Freudian reason for his descent into murder and self-destruction. This Gun For Hire, the film that made Alan Ladd a star, was the first of seven films starring the fabulous Ladd-Lake team (including two other films noirs, The Glass Key and The Blue Dahlia). Actor James Cagney directed a 1957 remake entitled Short Cut to Hell.”
I apologize to David for not posting this when he sent it, but two minutes after he posted it to comments, my head hit the pillow in a D.C. area hotel.
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2 comments:
I wanted to share with the readers two of the shows I've told everyone to avoid the last couple years--"The Neighborhood" and Bob♡Abishola.
September of 2018 I reviewed Cedric the Entertainer's,"The Neighborhood",as an insulting anti-white piece of liberal sh*t.
"A dumb white guy PROVES he's dumb by moving into an all black ghetto."
"Avoid it,"I wrote.
I took my own advice until last Monday when I decided to see if--a year later--it was still the same one star rated show I originally deemed it to be.Right after that show,I gave Billy Gardell's interracial romantic comedy a first chance to impress me.
The answers ARE:
"The Neighborhood" is still slum comedy and "Bob ♡ Abishola" is "Murphy Brown" liberalism repackaged with EXTREMELY stupid white people trying to impress blacks.
"The Neighborhood" tried to surprise us with the Cedric character and his wife being taken out to dinner by the idiotic white couple in the show(picking up the tab for blackie too)at a new soul food restaurant.The joint is jammed full of blacks and Cedric and the Mrs.love the spicy food--but the whites are begging for water(an example of the comedy).After eating,Cedric says,"That's the best soul food I've had since my grandma made it--REAL authentic black cooking."He tells the black waiter that he'd like to meet the cook--which by now,we all know IS WHITE!!!.
That pisses Cedric off,"Whites are stealing everything that blacks do--our food,our music,our history.I'm never coming back here again."
Which is what I said about the show itself.The difference is,Cedric was lying--I'm not--I'll never watch the program again.
(Still one ☆--same as 2018)
The Gardell show features fat,white Bob trying to get into an African immigrant's bush region--she's a doctor to boot(which makes her "an intelligent black woman" lol).
Last weeks show highlighted Bob's family,who try to help Bob run his sock business.They have a new campaign slogan to get blacks to buy their products--"We're sorry".
White cartoon people are in the new ads,apologizing to blacks for slavery and discrimination.This,the white,woke liberals think,will get blacks to purchase this company's merchandise.Bob also gets involved with two black males that work for him--which turns into "attack whitey" time for the fact that these dimwitted blacks were never promoted into management.
The episode was irritating,low on humor and preachy about how rotten whites are to blacks.
Next week,the preview showed Bob and Abishola going out to a restaurant and insulting older whites who are "looking at them wrong".
1/2 ☆ here(out of 4).Stay away.
---GR Anonymous
I never liked This Gun For Hire that much, though it's noteworthy for the first Ladd-Lake pairing.
In his outro, Eddie Muller said of Alan Ladd's film persona: "He played the crisp, aloof, icy loner, adeptly moving through a murky world of corruption. And "Veronica Lake played the distaff side with more humor."
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET and 10 am ET is Force of Evil (1948). It is directed by Abraham Polonsky and starring John Garfield, Beatrice Pearson, Thomas Gomez, Roy Roberts, Marie Windsor. Red Eddie will go into overdrive about "witchunts" and paranoia" regarding Polonsky and Garfield.
Film Noir Guide: "This noir, despite the social commentary about the evils of capitalism (disguised as organized crime) is a pretty good crime story about greed, conscience and the love-hate relationship between two estranged brothers (Garfield and Gomez). Garfield is excellent as a well-paid lawyer for gambling czar Roberts, who wants to legalize and thus monopolize the numbers rackets.
Further down Film Noir Guide calls it an "enjoyable (but overrated) film noir."
I saw Force of Evil years ago but it didn't make much of an impression on me.
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