[4] In contemporary wartime San Francisco, chemist and blackmailer Albert Baker is killed by hitman Philip Raven, who recovers a stolen chemical formula.

Police Detective Lieutenant Michael Crane, who is vacationing in San Francisco to visit his girlfriend, nightclub singer and stage magician Ellen Graham, is immediately assigned the case.

Meanwhile, Gates hires Ellen to work in his Los Angeles nightclub after an audition wherein she sings and performs magic tricks.

That evening, the suspicious Gates invites Ellen to his Hollywood mansion, where his chauffeur Tommy knocks her unconscious to set up a fake suicide.

She tells him that the formula he recovered was for a poison gas that Nitro is selling to the Japanese and begs him to extract a signed confession instead of killing Gates.

Raven disguises himself in Tommy's uniform and gas mask to surprise Gates, forcing him to take him to company president Alvin Brewster, the mastermind of the treasonous Nitro sale.

Graham Greene's novel was published in the U.S. as This Gun for Hire in 1936, and several movie studios considered obtaining rights to the book.

[5] Later that year, the cast was announced as being Akim Tamiroff, Ray Milland, and Ida Lupino, with Dore Schary writing the script.

He has been trying to get a foothold in pictures for eight years, but received no encouragement, although he tried every angle known to town – extra work, bit parts, stock contracts, dramatic schools, [and] assault of the casting offices.

Sue Carol, the former silent star who is now an agent, undertook to advance the youth's career two years ago and only recently could she locate an attentive ear.

[16] Although Ladd only received fourth billing, the film made him a star, due to fan reaction and critical praise.

[17] Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, wrote a rave review: One shudders to think of the career which Paramount must have in mind for Alan Ladd, a new actor, after witnessing the young gentleman's debut as a leading player in that studio's This Gun for Hire... Obviously, they have tagged him to be the toughest monkey loose on the screen.

For not since Jimmy Cagney massaged Mae Clarke's face with a grapefruit has a grim desperado gunned his way into cinema ranks with such violence as does Mr. Ladd in this fast and exciting melodrama.

"[20] John Houseman later wrote Ladd played "a professional killer with a poignant and desolate ferocity that made him unique, for a time, among the male heroes of his day.

"[21] Diabolique later wrote Ladd "gives an electric debut star performance – cold, blonde, tough, mysterious, ruthless, cat-loving, redeemable – and stole the film, but a lot of this was due to Lake, who matches him beautifully (at five foot two, she was one of the few female actors shorter than him); poor old Robert Preston is completely overshadowed.

Paramount Pictures later adapted the story as Short Cut to Hell (1957), directed by James Cagney, his only directorial effort.