A stark, compelling film noir which grips right from the start as we're introduced to Alan Ladd in his first major movie, one minute being as gentle as you like with his pet cat, the next slapping the face and tearing the dress of his lippy chambermaid. As the movie title tells you he's a hired hit man, apparently conscience free when it comes to gunning down his nominated victims - the first hit we witness he callously guns down the target's innocent girl-friend who unluckily is on the spot to witness her partner's slaying. Again though, we're shown his dichotomy as he hands back a ball which has fallen from the hands of a young disabled girl sitting outside in the hallway as he leaves.
Soon afterwards enters great character number two, the husky-voiced pocket dynamite that was Veronica Lake. Improbably cast as a magician cum cabaret singer cum special agent and beautifully dressed by Edith Head, she soon enough runs into Ladd and gradually builds up a testy relationship with him, even as she cosies up to her cop boyfriend, an altogether more anodyne character.
It would be pointless to dwell too much on the plot - the source novel is one of the few by Graham Greene I haven't read, but it's all satisfyingly labyrinthine and suspenseful right up to Ladd's demise in a crisply directed shoot-out by the end.
Fans of noir like me will love the plot's reference points of the femme fatale, double-crossing crooks and hard-boiled loners. The violence, as already indicated is very much in your face, surprisingly so, while some of the perspective and long shots employed are top notch for the genre.
Anyway it's over all too quickly and even if afterwards you'll be scratching your head trying to remember the plot in detail, you'll certainly long remember some of the scenes as well as the two leads. It's rare that two stars burst onto the scene in one movie, even if Ladd never quite graduated to true A-List status and Lake's light faded fast by the end of the decade.
Soon afterwards enters great character number two, the husky-voiced pocket dynamite that was Veronica Lake. Improbably cast as a magician cum cabaret singer cum special agent and beautifully dressed by Edith Head, she soon enough runs into Ladd and gradually builds up a testy relationship with him, even as she cosies up to her cop boyfriend, an altogether more anodyne character.
It would be pointless to dwell too much on the plot - the source novel is one of the few by Graham Greene I haven't read, but it's all satisfyingly labyrinthine and suspenseful right up to Ladd's demise in a crisply directed shoot-out by the end.
Fans of noir like me will love the plot's reference points of the femme fatale, double-crossing crooks and hard-boiled loners. The violence, as already indicated is very much in your face, surprisingly so, while some of the perspective and long shots employed are top notch for the genre.
Anyway it's over all too quickly and even if afterwards you'll be scratching your head trying to remember the plot in detail, you'll certainly long remember some of the scenes as well as the two leads. It's rare that two stars burst onto the scene in one movie, even if Ladd never quite graduated to true A-List status and Lake's light faded fast by the end of the decade.