This Gun for Hire (1942)

A hired killer (Alan Ladd) is double-crossed and sets out for revenge. Pretty Ellen (Veronica Lake) is caught in the middle. World War II propaganda is shoehorned in.

Here is the second of seven films that paired Ladd and Lake. Ladd was a talented actor with leading man good looks, but at only 5’6” there were few leading ladies he could play opposite. Lake, at 5’2” or shorter, fit the profile. Here they are not a romantic pair, Lake’s Ellen was with Detective Crane (Robert Preston).

A box office success, This Gun for Hire made Ladd a star, affording him the opportunity to take hero roles. Friends but not romantic in real life, Ladd and Lake had much in common. Both struggled with substance abuse and died at fifty.

Life has been (and will continue to be) busy, so it has been about a month since I saw this film. I did enjoy it but I had to do some reading to refresh my memory. Perhaps that in itself isn’t a great sign, but I did like it.. Anyhow, AMRU 3.5.

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Director (Joel McCrea) of lighthearted comedies wants to make serious films about the downtrodden. When it's pointed out that he knows nothing of trouble, he has wardrobe bring up a bum costume, puts a dime in his pocket, and tries to live among the poor. Along the way he meets up with a struggling starlet (struggling starlet Veronica Lake) and proceeds to find all the trouble he was looking for.

I suppose this is a romantic comedy, but Sullivan's quest to learn about the disenfranchised takes top priority. This movie appears to explore liberal guilt. Rich white man taking up the cause of the poor without having any clue what it means to be poor. Boy howdy, does he find out.

Nineteen year old Lake was seven or eight months pregnant while filming, and you'd never know it. She's jumping on trains and falling into water just as the doctor ordered. There's a scene in a black church that was rather interesting. It depicts the poor black people as, well, people. This was 1941, remember. Being a frightened or bumbling servant was the BEST they normally could hope for. Director Preston Sturges received a letter from Walter White (not THAT Walter White!) from the NAACP in appreciation. I guess the scene with the bumbling chef was easily ignored.

So wonderfully written, Sullivan's Travels is delightful. His dialog had just enough edge to make production code Hollywood interesting. Definitely a see-again. AMRU 4.

"Just an extra girl having breakfast with a director. Only I didn't used to have breakfast with them. Maybe that was my trouble.
Did they ever ask you to?
No.
Then don't pat yourself on the back."

The Blue Dahlia (1946)

When a war hero (Alan Ladd) comes home early to surprise his wife, she surprises him right back (nudge nudge). When he finds out how his son actually died, he considers killing her, but decides she isn't worth it. Later she is found dead by his gun, and he decides to lay low for a while. His army buddies bumble around.

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake were in seven films together. They had a few things in common. Other than stature, they both died at age 50. While he died of the manly disease of liquor and barbiturates, she died of hepatitis. While he worked in pictures up until the end, she was seldom caught on camera past the age of 30. Her last picture was the terrible Flesh Feast.

Screenwriter Raymond Chandler didn't like Lake much, calling her Moronica Lake, thinking her performance didn't add anything to the movie. She would call herself a sex zombie. Sounds like Chandler was kind of a dink himself, offering to drink himself blind in order to finish the script on time. What a way to take one for the team.

This is the third film I've done to feature Hugh Beaumont of Beaver fame. I actually don't remember him in The 7th Victim. I recognized the voice of suspect number 1 and looked him up. He played Ben Franklin in 1776, my favorite musical ever.

In real life, shortly after the film's release, a young woman named Elizabeth Short was murdered in a particularly grizzly manner. The press labeled it the Black Dahlia murder and it is still unsolved. There is no actual connection to the film.

Blue Dahlia is better than fair film-noir mystery for most of it. Ladd struck the right tone, Lake (the Kristen Stewart of her day) was passable as eye candy with lines, and the supporting cast was interesting. As we approached the finale, the mystery gets muddled. I won't elaborate but suffice to say I have one big pet peeve with mysteries and this one hit it. The reason was because the studio demanded a rewrite of the ending, throwing Chandler for a loop.

Still, better than fair. AMRU 3.5.

"You've got the wrong lipstick on, Mister."

I Married a Witch (1942)

A distant ancestor of aspiring Governor Wallace Wooley (Fredric March) condemned a witch (Veronica Lake) and her father to death and planted an oak tree planted above their graves to trap their souls. Before she died, she cursed the Wooley family to only marry the wrong woman. Centuries later, the tree is struck by lightening and the souls of the witches are freed. Jennifer decides to take on a new body so that she can torment poor Wallace. Susan Hayward played his shrewish fiancee. The magician from The Mummy's Hand played her father.

Way to spoil an ending in a film title! Anyhow, Lake was a huge star back in the '40s and not so much thereafter. Apparently she was very difficult to work with. Despite their on-screen chemistry, she and March did not work well together. She would do things like hide weights on herself for scenes where he would have to carry her. Reportedly, he referred to the movie as "I Married a Bitch." Apparently Joel McCrea (remember him from Bird of Paradise?) was set to play opposite her, but after working with her in Sullivan's Travels, he decided to skip it, saying life is too short to do two movies with Lake.

On set behavior aside, I can see how the diminutive Lake became a star. She was both charming and adorable. Her film roles dried up in the later part of the decade as her difficult reputation grew, and she went into television. She did two more movies, one in '66 and another in '70 to no particular acclaim. She died in '73 of hepatitis at age 50, alcoholism and unstable behavior hastening her end.

The movie was bright, cheerful, and entertaining. Internal drama aside, Lake and March worked well together. AMRU 3.5.