This Gun for Hire

This re-make of the 1942 Alan Ladd-Veronica Lake film noir was surprisingly good. Unlike the original, it had color but it still had a good film noir feel, look and sound to it. The story had a few moralistic holes in it, but nothing big enough to ruin the film.

Robert Wagner was great to watch as the hit-man "Raven," actually more interesting than Ladd who played the same role. Wagner played the character accurately: a grim, no-smile kind of guy. Wagner, as people have seen in the popular Austin Powers movies, is not the young, slim, pretty boy most of us remember from the later classic movie era and that was good for this role. A few lines on his face made him more believable.

The film also had very little profanity, almost like an older made-for-TV film, yet it had its share of nudity so it maybe it was made for cable-TV. Don't look for a bunch of big name actors in this film. The rest of main characters are played by Nancy Everhard, Frederic Lehne and John Harkins.

At any rate, I enjoyed this and would like to see more of these updated 40s film noirs if they are done as well as this one.