Quote P. Raven Nevermore


That Philip Raven. He don’t stick his neck out for anybody. Besides, he was once hurt by a woman. Really hurt. And now the only things he trusts besides himself are his gat and his cat -- and sometimes not even his cat.

We first see Philip Raven (played by Alan Ladd) at a boarding house in San Francisco where he is planning his latest assignment.: the murder of a blackmailer. He shows kindness to a stray cat but not to the maid who cleans his room. Instead he attacks her and tears her dress because she objects to his feeding the cat. But that does not matter because he has been hurt, you see. Really hurt.

Raven then goes to murder the blackmailer only to find that he is with a female companion, so he shoots her too. On the way out, he contemplates shooting a crippled girl on the stairway who is the only potential witness to his arrival. Then she asks him for a dropped ball and he realizes she is blind. Which is just as well because he was not hurt by a girl. He was hurt by a woman. Really hurt.

He shows up at a local diner for his payoff, which he receives from a fat man who likes peppermints. The fat man (played by Laird Cregar) is the type who allegedly abhors violence but does not mind paying for it as long as someone else does the dirty work. When he is greeted by someone who addresses him by the name “Dr. William Gates,” the fat man promptly claims such a greeting to be a case of mistaken identity. But Raven is not fooled.

Then Raven discovers that he has been paid with stolen money and that the serial numbers of the bills had been given to the police. He vows to track down the mysterious “Gates” who set him up but first he runs across the path of nightclub entertainer Ellen Graham (played by Veronica Lake). Graham recently talked Gates into giving her job at his club in Los Angeles. Shortly before she meets Raven, we find out that she has been recruited by an U.S. senator who has heard about Gates meeting with suspected foreign agents. Ms. Graham’s role as a true-blue patriot is to find out what is going on with Gates and those agents. But her assignment is so secret she cannot even tell her police detective boyfriend about it.

Then she crosses path with Raven. She and Raven sit side by side in the same railroad car and while they’re sleeping, Gates -- who is also on board the train -- sees the two of them together and concludes that they are connected.

Suddenly Graham is being set up by Gates and her only hope is Raven the hired killer. The same Raven who at one point of the movie, contemplated killing her to eliminate a possible witness. Because he has been hurt by a woman you see. Really hurt.

As you might guess, the main themes of this movie are deception and redemption. Gates deceives Raven, Graham deceives Gates, Gates deceives the police and Raven deceives himself. Indeed, apart from the police detective, everybody seems to be deceiving someone else at some point in this movie. (And when the police detective proposes to Graham and takes seriously her words about giving up a successful career in show business to take up housekeeping and baby raising, I cannot help but wonder if the police detective is not deceiving himself as to Graham’s eagerness to do all that. But I digress.) However, even an evil hired killer like Philip Raven might -- just might -- be capable of a good deed. Like saving Ms. Graham from Gates and his Axis-loving associates.

Toward the end, Graham attempts to appeal to Raven’s patriotism only to be turned down cold. Raven is not interested in being a good patriot; he is only interested in revenge. Does he get it? Does his vendetta against Gates ruin Graham’s quest to expose Gates’ ring of traitors?

For the answer to these and other questions, you will have to see the 1942 thriller This Gun for Hire for yourself. I suppose I could tell you how it all comes out but I don‘t stick my neck out for anybody.