Hard-biting crime drama with a hired gun, Philip Raven(Alan Ladd, in his first starring role) who takes out a blackmailer and his secretary(she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, collateral damage)for a client, Willard Gates(Laird Cregar, HANOVER SQUARE; THE LODGER), working for the head honcho of a chemical plant. The victim, Baker, was holding onto something that would implicate Mr. Alvin Brewster(Tully Marshall), and he needed it back. When Gates and Brewster attempt to betray Raven, the movie follows his journey to get even.
Laird Cregar works as an executive for Nitro Chemical, owns an LA nightclub known as The Neptune Club, and could be associated with "foreign agents". It's his boss who hired Raven to kill the blackmailer and set up the assassin using stolen 10 dollar marked bills "stolen from the company". The elegant "magic performance artist" Veronica Lake(va va voom! What a voice and figure, these kinds of women are definitely missed)is commissioned to "go undercover" and attempt to see if Cregar is in fact a traitor to his country by performing for his Neptune club. Meanwhile Raven must elude the cops, led by detective Crane(Robert Preston), after being shanghaied by the conniving Cregar and his nefarious boss, Brewster.
Raven has a broken left wrist with a bone protruding, a nasty attitude and cold personality with one fixed facial expression devoid of any semblance of humanity, with one goal in mind and that is to find Gates and the Nitro Chemical chairman(a sickly old man confined to a wheelchair who cannot talk very loudly)to exact revenge for doublecrossing him. This is the kind of killer who can shoot a person if he or she places him in a dangerous predicament which threatens his own existence.
What a great cast. Ladd as the cold blooded professional killer, Cregar as a worried, nervy executive always bumbling into mistakes which makes his boss angry, the glamorous Veronica Lake and her sex appeal, the enthusiastic Preston, sure he will catch his man and excited(obviously)about wedding Lake as soon as her job is complete, Marc Lawrence as Cregar's trusting chauffeur, willing to kill Lake so his boss would not be harmed —it's always fun to watch a collection of talents at work. The movie's McGuffin is a formula for poison gas, Brewster in league with the dreaded Japanese, and Baker, the one killed by Raven, wanted hush money for it. It's Brewster's distrust in anyone with knowledge of the formula which eventually comes back to haunt him. Seeing Cregar all cowardly and panicky is a hoot, such a pathetic scaredy-cat he is, only caring for his own hide, concerned for his own welfare. Ladd may be a bit too good-looking for a hardened criminal, beat by his aunt as a child, this traumatizing past having shaped his Philip Raven into a killer. Preston as his dogged rival, pressed for time by his superiors to catch Ladd or else be replaced by someone who can, is interesting, cast-against-type as the good guy, even though he excels at portraying villains. Lake is top-billed and deservedly so, her overwhelming beauty an asset for any film. Movie is said to have been an inspiration in many ways to Melville's masterpiece, Le Samouraï.
Laird Cregar works as an executive for Nitro Chemical, owns an LA nightclub known as The Neptune Club, and could be associated with "foreign agents". It's his boss who hired Raven to kill the blackmailer and set up the assassin using stolen 10 dollar marked bills "stolen from the company". The elegant "magic performance artist" Veronica Lake(va va voom! What a voice and figure, these kinds of women are definitely missed)is commissioned to "go undercover" and attempt to see if Cregar is in fact a traitor to his country by performing for his Neptune club. Meanwhile Raven must elude the cops, led by detective Crane(Robert Preston), after being shanghaied by the conniving Cregar and his nefarious boss, Brewster.
Raven has a broken left wrist with a bone protruding, a nasty attitude and cold personality with one fixed facial expression devoid of any semblance of humanity, with one goal in mind and that is to find Gates and the Nitro Chemical chairman(a sickly old man confined to a wheelchair who cannot talk very loudly)to exact revenge for doublecrossing him. This is the kind of killer who can shoot a person if he or she places him in a dangerous predicament which threatens his own existence.
What a great cast. Ladd as the cold blooded professional killer, Cregar as a worried, nervy executive always bumbling into mistakes which makes his boss angry, the glamorous Veronica Lake and her sex appeal, the enthusiastic Preston, sure he will catch his man and excited(obviously)about wedding Lake as soon as her job is complete, Marc Lawrence as Cregar's trusting chauffeur, willing to kill Lake so his boss would not be harmed —it's always fun to watch a collection of talents at work. The movie's McGuffin is a formula for poison gas, Brewster in league with the dreaded Japanese, and Baker, the one killed by Raven, wanted hush money for it. It's Brewster's distrust in anyone with knowledge of the formula which eventually comes back to haunt him. Seeing Cregar all cowardly and panicky is a hoot, such a pathetic scaredy-cat he is, only caring for his own hide, concerned for his own welfare. Ladd may be a bit too good-looking for a hardened criminal, beat by his aunt as a child, this traumatizing past having shaped his Philip Raven into a killer. Preston as his dogged rival, pressed for time by his superiors to catch Ladd or else be replaced by someone who can, is interesting, cast-against-type as the good guy, even though he excels at portraying villains. Lake is top-billed and deservedly so, her overwhelming beauty an asset for any film. Movie is said to have been an inspiration in many ways to Melville's masterpiece, Le Samouraï.