It was quite refreshing to see that this movie didn't have the typical Hollywood ending where the two main characters ho
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — This Gun for Hire
Verdoux-1 — 19 years ago(May 10, 2006 03:55 PM)
It was quite refreshing to see that this movie didn't have the typical Hollywood ending where the two main characters hook up at the end.
"An eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind" -
athomed — 14 years ago(December 12, 2011 05:30 PM)
They both, for various reasons, couldn't share that romantic connection. A lot of Alan Ladd movies spurned the normal Hollywood ending. The movie Shane is a perfect example of that.
Stripping under the name Malcolm Sex, I pleased the ladies by any means necessary.
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cpbvk — 14 years ago(December 19, 2011 10:24 PM)
Are you suggesting that the "Hollywood" thing to do would have been for Veronica Lake to dump her beau, who was the good guy and who treated her well, for a not-very-sympathetic killer, albeit a nominally reformed one? I love this film, but I think the ending, where Alan Ladd ultimately does the right thing, getting the villains to sign the confession just before he's gunned down by the cops, was the obvious Hollywood way out, and could be seen from the Space Station. The only mild divergence was when he broke his vow and killed a cop and then Laird Creager in cold blood.
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Tjanssen411 — 11 years ago(May 18, 2014 02:24 AM)
it was the Hays Code Era
criminals HAD TO be punished so there was No way he was going to get the girl
having shown signs of humanity, being a villain protagonist he Might have been allowed to Live and simply been arrested
but even then under 'the code' more often then not having Killed someone on screen (not self defense, in the line of duty) odds were good he'd go out in a hail of gun fire as soon as he shot the woman(in the first act), for being a witness he might as well have been fitted for his toe tag at the very least his fate was sealed shooting the Cop by the billboard so really This was the "Hollywood Ending' of the day -
london777 — 9 years ago(August 12, 2016 10:27 AM)
It was quite refreshing to see that this movie didn't have the typical Hollywood ending where the two main characters hook up at the end.
I think you are misled by hindsight.
When the film was envisaged and made, Lake and Preston were the top-billed stars and would have been regarded as the "main characters", as this early poster, where Ladd is only billed fourth, makes clear:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ThisGunForHire
Ladd had been kicking around Hollywood for twelve years doing bit parts. It may be that, as filming progressed, the director and studio realized that they had stumbled on a diamond in the rough and ramped up the focus on Ladd, but when first conceived they set out to cash in on the star status of Lake and Preston, so in that sense the two main characters
did
hook up at the end. -
cultfilmfreaksdotcom — 9 years ago(November 27, 2016 10:57 PM)
Not in a Noir. And not in a movie where one of the two leads is a killer, and the other has a cop boyfriend who is the good guy.
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