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Movie
Poster for This Gun for Hire

This Gun for Hire

1942 · 81 min

A taut, shadowy noir that keeps you leaning in, balancing cold violence with a strange tenderness.

Tagline
A Lone Wolf…dynamite with a girl or a gun!
Overview
Sadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.

Search YouTube for the trailer

In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
In your watch list

How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
  • darkstrength 3 of 3
  • tensestrength 2 of 3
  • melancholicstrength 2 of 3
  • romanticstrength 1 of 3
Pacing
brisk, 3 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention
engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes
  • revenge
  • betrayal
  • corruption
  • redemption
  • isolation
Places
  • big city
  • countryside
Era
period
Audience
adult
Form
  • twist ending
Content intensity
  • Gore mild
  • Language none
  • Violence strong
  • Sex mild
All scales, 0 to 10
Scales, 0 to 10
ScaleValue0 to 10
Action6
Horror3
Humour2
Realism7
Romance3
Tension7
Darkness7
Complexity6
Emotional weight6

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Where to watch in the UK

No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Details

Genres
crime, thriller
Directed by
Frank Tuttle
Written by
Albert Maltz, W.R. Burnett
Starring
Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, Tully Marshall, Marc Lawrence, Olin Howland, Roger Imhof
Music
David Buttolph
Cinematography
John F. Seitz
Runtime
81 min
Country
United States of America
Languages
English

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