One of the genuinely seminal films in Hollywood’s noir movement, this taut thriller (scripted by W. R. Burnett and Albert Maltz from the book by Graham Greene) made stars of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, who’d fast become Paramount’s biggest box-office duo of the forties. Ladd plays lone-wolf assassin Philip Raven, who enlists Lake’s aid in freeing himself from a frame-up by a secret cadre of “fifth columnists.” This forged the template for all “hired killer” movies to follow. Costarring Robert Preston and the fabulous Laird Cregar.