On this day in movie history - This Gun for Hire (1942 movie & novel):

This Gun for Hire

directed by Frank Tuttle,

written by Albert Maltz and W.R. Burnett,

based on the novel A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene,

was released in the United States on April 24, 1942.
Music by David Buttolph.

Cast:

Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, Alan Ladd, Tully Marshall, Marc Lawrence, Olin Howland, Roger Imhof, Pamela Blake, Frank Ferguson, Victor Kilian, Patricia Farr, Harry Shannon, Charles C. Wilson, Mikhail Rasumny, Bernadene Hayes, Mary Davenport, Chester Clute, Charles Arnt, Earle S. Dewey, Clem Bevans, Lynda Grey, Virita Campbell.

Recommended reading:

A Gun for Sale

By Graham Greene.

Introduction by Samuel Hynes.

Filmed as This Gun for Hire (1942), directed by Frank Tuttle.

Published by Penguin Publishing Group.

First published 1936.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 014303930X

ISBN-13: 978-0143039303

Description:

Raven is an ugly man dedicated to ugly deeds. His cold-blooded killing of a European Minister of War is an act of violence with chilling repercussions, not just for Raven himself but for the nation as a whole. The money he receives in payment for the murder is made up of stolen notes and when the first of these is traced, Raven becomes a man on the run. As he tracks down the agent who has been double-crossing him and attempts to elude the police, he becomes both hunter and hunted: an unwitting weapon of a strange kind of social justice. In doing so, he sets the stage for Greene’s next novel, Brighton Rock. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Samuel Hynes.