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I’ve never read any of Graham Greene’s “entertainments,” as opposed to his serious novels, but the 1942 This Gun for Hire smacks of a good adaptation.

Alan Ladd is in it, and he ain’t no Shane:  he’s an icy killer (suitably acted), while Veronica Lake rightly holds down the iciness she displayed in Sullivan’s Travels.  This is her vehicle; with groundedness and class she enacts a singing magician (!) recruited for a righteous cause.  I liked her chemistry with Robert Preston. . . Director Frank Tuttle is uneasy with action scenes, but not, apparently, with actors.  All the same, the movie is entertaining.