This Gun For Hire

This Gun For Hire (Frank Tuttle, 1942) We talked about James Cagney's sole directorial effort—Short Cut To Hell—in May (that long ago?). My opinion of Cagney is exospherically high, but the film he made was not all that great, despite having as its source a well-regarded early Graham Greene novel. Although it had its moments, it just wasn't all that good; it was (in my opinion) a problem with the creepy lead, and lackluster script and...direction (Cagney preferred producing over directing—he didn't like telling people what to do, he said).

But, Short Cut To Hell was a remake of a significant 1942 Paramount film that was an early example of film noir—which is usually associated with the POST-war period of cynicism in the world-view—and that turned a slight Hollywood contract player* into a star, Alan Walbridge Ladd Jr. (as proof, look at the poster where Ladd is buried at the bottom—that would change on subsequent one-sheets).**

Ladd plays Philip Raven, and we first meet him in a dingy apartment, sweating in a slept-in suit and tie when his alarm clock going off. Time to go to work. He pulls out a folder and puts his gun in it. He feeds a visiting stray-cat and roughs up the house-maid who tries to shoo it away. Raven's a cat-person. Stands to reason. Cats are independent. Dogs are exceedingly loyal and might slow you down. But, Raven, despite the ornithological name, is a feral stray—he's loyal to no one and has no ties. He does freelance work and once he's paid, he's gone. Don't pay him...well, that's just one more job. Work is tough, but it's steady.

Not so much for Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake). Oh, she has skills—she's a cabaret performer who sings and does sleight-of-hand. But, the offers are few and far-between and usually have hands attached to them. That's okay, though, she likes the looks on would-be-lotharios' faces when she tells them her boyfriend (Robert Preston) is a cop. His work is steady, too, and so much so that he can't accompany Ellen for an audition she's got at a club. Maybe he should have. Because here is where things start to get complicated.

That nightclub she's auditioning for is owned by Willard Gates (Laird Cregar), who's also a busy man. He has two jobs. Besides the nightclub, he's a problem-solver for Nitro Chemical under the direct supervision of Alvin Brewster (Tully Marshall), who isn't above a little advantageous war-profiteering by selling to the country's enemies. And he's just hired Raven to kill a guy who's got a dossier on the sale and is planning to blackmail Nitro Chemical with it. Raven does his usual efficient job of axing the blackmailer and his secretary, but he's a bit of a "one-and-done" kind of guy.

His employer, Gates, plays a long game. He pays off Raven with marked bills, then goes to the police to report that Nitro has had money stolen from its payroll and (fortuitously!) has the serial numbers of the bills that were stolen. And guess who the detective is that he gives the list to? Ellen's boyfriend, natch! If Raven spends any of that money, it's going to be traced right back to him. Gates gets rid of the blackmailer and the guy hired to kill him in one swoop. Nitro Chemical can continue to sell poison gas to the Japanese. Simple.

Not so fast. On one front, Ellen is given a detour after her audition by the federal government in the form of Senator Burnett (Roger Imhof), who wants her new job at Gates' nightclub to be a front for spying on her employer. She's an all-American gal, so she says "Yes, sir!" Meanwhile, Raven is starting to feel the heat from those marked bills he's been using around town, so much so that he barely manages to avoid a stake-out at the flea-bag hotel he's staying at. He decides that he better blow San Francisco as fast as possible...and find that weasel Gates and make him pay...with interest. He heads to the train station to get a train to Los Angeles, where Gates is headquartered.

Small world. Gates is heading home on the train first class, and so is his new hire, Ellen. Smaller train. Ellen and Raven end up seated next to each other and rather than "meet cute" they "meet loot" when he rifles through her billfold for some loose change. She notices that she's a bit lighter in dough, and she tells him to fork it back or she's calling the porter. Raven's on the run, so he sheepishly hands back the pickings and grunts an apology, and she keeps a close stink-eye on the guy.

And Gates? He's about to go to the dining car (not that he could use skipping a meal) when he spies Raven and Ellen sitting next to each in coach. He gets spooked and has the porter wire ahead to Los Angeles that the man the San Francisco cops are looking for is ON THAT TRAIN! How does he know what the guy looks like when they don't even know? W-well...never mind that, he's ON THAT TRAIN!

Once everybody's in Los Angeles is when things turn a little nasty: Raven takes Ellen hostage but let's her go, boyfriend starts to panic and up the search for Raven, Ellen gets invited to Gates' house for dinner and because she's a good little soldier/spy, she goes, Gates' sadistic man-servant (Marc Lawrence) has pretty twisted ideas of how to get rid of her, Raven comes a-stalkin' for Gates with an eye toward murder, and pretty soon, bullets are flying and people are running all around Los Angeles, trying to dodge those bullets.

Director Frank Tuttle is not on anyone's list of great, influential directors, but his work on this and another Ladd/Lake film—an adaptation (the second, in fact) of Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key—at least earns him some mention in any article on the development of film noir. He'd worked from the silent days of 1922 to 1959 (where he ended his career working on two pot-boilers for Ladd's production company). His primary directing days were for Paramount Pictures, but, a member of the Communist Party, he was blacklisted and, like many others, moved to Europe where he could still be considered for work. Returning to Hollywood years later, he'd pick up work from Ladd, who was loyal to the man who made him a star, but also because Tuttle was stylish without doing any damage to a budget.

I've always liked Lake—although her male co-stars often complained about her—she's always come across as someone who had a thought in their head, even playing milquetoast roles. She had a confident swagger about her and made the most out of comic lines, and walked that fine tightrope of sarcasm, but without any real malice. Both men and women liked her, which made her something of a sensation (and may I say that Lauren Bacall owed her a lot!). She was barely 20 making This Gun For Hire—having just finished filming Sullivan's Travels.

Ladd was ten years older, but seemed younger and more vulnerable, certainly quieter and more restrained. But, there was a cold dead-ness in his eyes, that made an audience curious and commanded their attention, and he was All-American handsome, but not in a modelish way. Ladd looked more comfortable frying up eggs than having them served to him, and he radiated working class that most stars couldn't. He'd look at a glass of champagne that was handed to him before he drank it. He was relatable—something the kid who played the part in Cagney's version certainly wasn't.

So, call it noir-lite, with its respect for higher authority and its "choir of angels" ending, but This Gun For Hire is, if not a blueprint, at least a first-draft rendering of what would pass for the naked bulbs and slanting shades and grit of film noir. It made bad look really good.

* Ladd had been in films since 1932 in scores of small roles--you can see him in the shadows in the screening room at the beginning and walking the halls of Xanadu at the end in Citizen Kane.

 

**

Sullivan's Travels

Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941) Entertaining 1941 "message picture"..."with a little sex in it."

 

Big Deal studio comedy director John L. Sullivan has a case of "Hamlet disease,"* and wants the studio to bankroll a serious picture (for a change!) about poverty—entitled "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?"**—but while the brass haggle over whether they want to do it or not to appease their big bread-winner, "Sully" (Joel McCrea) decides to dress the part and go amongst the poor and down-trodden for a little research. After all, he's a rich Hollywood mucky-muck—what does he know about poverty (other than he's against it)? Early on in his plan, a girl (Veronica Lake, playing "The Girl"), who is down on her own luck trying to get acting jobs, uses her last thirty cents to buy the poor schlub some breakfast at a diner. Sully gets the guilts, and tells her of his idea, and ropes her into the scheme.

The two then skip the studio publicity-mill buttinski-bus that's been set up to track their moves as they spend the next few days hopping freights, eating at soup kitchens, and sleeping at flop-houses. The movie fairly careens like the Keystone Cops with changes of tone from earnest pathos to roaring comedy: the poor are saintly (though one thief is particularly verminous), while the rich Beverly Hills folk, they are a foolish bunch. And (one must admit) Sully's "experiment" falls a bit short in the stakes department when he and The Girl can easily abandon it at a moment's whim (although Sturges does insure a more authentic experience, just to ensure that his point gets made).

Ultimately, the film seems just a tad self-justifying in that a comedy film-maker is making a comedy about why comedies are needed. One would think that Sully could read the trades and see how well his movies were doing and come to the same conclusion. But, the point is made—and made often—that the well-to-do Hollywood types haven't a clue about a world that isn't butlered and chauffered and catered...to their every need.

But let's not quibble. The movie is a great construction with Sturges' rock solid writing delivering a punch or punch-line every third line or so, all delivered at a break-neck pace by his stable of regulars and McCrea, whose sense of light comedy was impeccable, and Veronica Lake, who was never better than the breezy blonde who goes along for the ride.

Sullivan's Travels is the brightest star of the Preston Sturges series of Paramount comedies. If it can lead one to seeking out the rest of this too-overlooked writer-director's films, then that's gravy.

Sullivan's Travels was voted into the United States National Film Registry in 1990 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is all that and also damned entertaining. And sometimes that's all you can hope for in this cockeyed caravan.

 

* When a comedian yearns to play Hamlet to prove his range...and be taken seriously.

** Yes, this is where the Coen Brothers got it.

Hey, that's Preston Sturges in the background playing the director!

I Married a Witch

I Married a Witch (René Clair, 1942) A Preston Sturges production (that he quit over differences with the director), partially written by Dalton Trumbo (who quit over his differences with Preston Sturges—maybe he should have waited until Sturges and Clair started to have meetings), I Married a Witch is one troubled flick, and, sadly, it shows. Where it should be charming (and dare I say "magical"?), it's merely cloying. And all of the behind-the-camera wrangling wasn't the only thing causing havoc on the picture, as there was quite a bit of cursing and hexing among the actors in front of the camera, too. Joel McCrea (who would have been a better match here) passed on the starring role after his difficulties with Veronica Lake on Sullivan's Travels ("Life's too short..." was his comment) and Frederic March—a better actor and no slouch at comedy (see Nothing Sacred) was inserted.  But, his efforts comes off forced and flat, and Lake's antics off-screen soured any chemistry when the two were photographed together. 

And yet, Lake is great.  She didn't take any of this too seriously—it's a fantasy, after all—and she's that perfect combination of alluring and goofy.* Her character, a witch named Jennifer burned at the stake during the witch-trials by one of the ancestors of March's character, places a curse on the male family-line to always marry the wrong woman. By the time, lightning strikes a gnarled tree which frees the spirits (in smoke form), the latest of the Wooley clan is a scion running for political position and is on the hallowed eve of marrying the starchy daughter (Susan Hayward) of his chief supporter, a newspaper publisher (Robert Warwick). Everything seems well-orchestrated and on-schedule, prim and proper and corrupt. What's needed is a little black magic.

And where there's smoke, there's fire. Wooley and Jennifer "meet cute"...in a burning building—whatever the merits of the film, you can't say it's "formula"—and Jennifer's witch starts popping up everywhere, most notably in Wooley's pajamas in his bed, which makes things...complicated. Now, that "formula," which we mentioned earlier, comes to the fore, when the witch decides to seal the deal with a love potion to ensure Wooley's love for her. Guess who drinks it?  You don't need magic powers to guess.

Where the film picks up (and actually does catch fire) is in the drawn-out wedding sequence, where Jennifer's manipulations (along with her father's, played in corporeal form by Cecil Kellaway) manage to derail the most staged of political-social weddings and does so four times.** The wedding singer sings "I Love You Truly," the wedding march begins, and then (boom) something happens and everything gets pushed back to the starting point—"I Love You Truly." Having to pick up the pieces and re-stage something so elaborate that many times is comedy gold, and Clair and the writers (including Robert Benchley who has a prominent role) keep ramping up the stakes when returning to the ritual, leading to a fine capper involving the ceremony's stodgy wedding singer.

But, then, things turn "charming" again, undercutting the satire and the basic push-pull of organization and chaos. But, for a brief time, anarchy reigns supreme, turning the greased gears of prominence and political glad-handing into a thudding, shuddering mess, seeing a processional and wanting to pull the rug out from under it. No wonder Sturges wanted to do it. And Trumbo? He knew a lot about witch-trials (but not as much as he would). Benchley is nicely droll throughout, light on the irony, heavy on the farce. There's a constant battle between the wisenheimer and the twee and the result is rather milquetoast.  What should have bubbled like a cauldron comes across as rather tepid.

But that wedding section. It's crashingly good. 

"that perfect combination of alluring and goofy"

  

* What is it with blondes and comedy?  As much as Hollywood tries to shoe-horn gorgeous blonde-types into drama, some of the most alluring women are at their best doing comedy—Carole Lombard, Grace Kelly, Kim Basinger, Cybill Shepherd, Charlize Theron (all serenely beautiful) were at their best (in my opinion) when they were sly and antic, as if there was something in their DNA (or peroxide) that compelled them to find the "funny" in a situation, especially their own, and blow it up. One of those little mysteries that occupy my brain in stray moments.

** The bride is played by pre-stardom/America's sweetheart Susan Hayward, who's character is such a straight-laced sour-puss that she has to be reminded by her newspaper-editor of a father to smile at her own wedding, which she manages to do only the first three times. It's among the collection of running gags in the extended sequence that builds to a satisfyingly disruptive conclusion.