rec.arts.movies.past-films

On Sep 4, 10:46 pm, william wrote:
> On Sep 4, 10:24 pm, Dave in Toronto wrote:
>
> > Much as I admire Graham Greene as a writer I think "This Gun for Hire"
> > is a case of the movie being better than the book. Even the title is
> > better than Greene's "A Gun for Sale". The script writers did a fine
> > job in keeping the salient points of Greene's novel but improved it by
> > transposing the setting to America. The hired gun is more an American
> > tradition than a British one. Ladd gave one his finest performances
> > in this his first starring role. No surprise that he and the movie
> > became smash hits. Hard to believe that Ladd had appeared in 42
> > movies before this before this without attracting much attention.
>
> Not to argue the relative merits of the book versus the movie but just
> to point out two technical quibbles. "The Gun For Hire" was the title
> of the US book (although like Rear Window and Shoot The Piano Player
> it may have been retitled after the release of the film. Not sure if
> this actually happened). The second is that assassins have a long
> history in Europe although gunman are a more typically American
> institution in films. One really nice European hitman flick is Jean
> Pierre Melville's Samurai. So while I pretty much agree, I just wanted
> to mention these -- admittedly petty -- quibbles.
>
>


"A Gun for Sale" was Greene's original title and it was published
under that title in the UK. I think the title change for the
American version was for the better but I still think the title for
the movie "This Gun for Hire' is the best.

Dave in Toronto