Short Cut to Hell

Robert Ivers ,mainly in the first part ,gives an impressive performance:impassive ,deadpan,cold as ice ,he will make you shiver with his robotic swagger.When he kills the secretary after her boss,the directing(and performance) seems years ahead of its time.Ditto for the scene in the restaurant where his "client" is savoring mint chocolates or later in the train where he meets the chanteuse.

The problem lies in this singer's character:the courageous young girl,who feels for the unfortunate killer who's got a raw deal,whose drunkard of a father treated him so bad he could be nothing but an outlaw etc etc etc.After an offbeat and intriguing first part,the movie turns predictable and the "moving" ending is business as usual.

Robert Ivers and Georgeann Johnson never quite had the careers that were predicted for them in the introduction to this film by their director. But both give a reasonably competent road show adaption of the Paramount classic This Gun For Hire. Short Cut To Hell also stars William Bishop in the role of the San Francisco cop played originally by Robert Preston who is on the trail to Los Angeles looking for a killer.

The whole wartime angle in This Gun For Hire is dropped for this 1957 film. Instead it's a contract killing of civil servant Peter Baldwin who is about to expose some shady dealings in building contracting. But as in the original he's paid off in hot money from a faked robbery with serial numbers duly recorded and reported to the police.

For the most part the film follows the plot of This Gun For Hire even using a lot of the same lines. Jacques Aubuchon plays the Laird Cregar part of the fixer and he has the same aversion against seeing any of the violence he pays for.

A.C. Lyles who later became famous for producing all those B westerns with past their prime players produced this film and got none other than James Cagney to direct it in his only credit in that department. Cagney never went behind the camera again.

But I doubt even with the original cast of This Gun For Hire that he could have improved on what Frank Tuttle did in 1942.

An icy hit-man seeks revenge after being double-crossed by his employer.

Catch those early scenes with an over-heated Vickers (Daisy). I don't know what director Cagney told her, but she does everything except kiss the camera. Given the generally slack results, I can see why Cagney never again directed. The movie itself is spotty, at best, with an erratic script and uneven acting. Johnson (Glory) and Aubuchon (Barhwell) are fine; however, lead actor Ivers (Kyle) lacks the gravitas to carry off the merciless hit-man. He looks a little like Cagney, but is a long way from the latter's compelling charisma. (Note how the physically slight Ivers wears a bulky trenchcoat in most scenes.) Of the two leads, it's really Georgann Johnson who has the strong presence. Note too, the subtle hints that Bahrwell might well be gay, rather daring innuendo for the time.

Cagney's pretty good at staging. The industrial plant scenes are both eye-catchers and ominously suggestive. And I'm wondering whose lavish Hollywood estate was used for the finale. Speaking of the estate, the showdown is a lot tamer than I expected, given Bahrwell's slimy character. And shouldn't overlook the two execution scenes that are quite graphic, for the time. However, there are also two contrived implausibles—Glory donning Kyle's decoy outfit even though she's certain to get shot; plus, thug Nichols' (Vye) recovering quickly with hardly a mark after a savage beating. Neither is well thought out.

Not surprisingly, Johnson went on to a very respectable TV career, while it looks like Ivers never again had a lead role. Fortunately, Cagney went back to what he did best—acting. All in all, the movie fails to have any lasting impact despite the strong premise. It's definitely not the best version of novelist Greene's This Gun For Hire.

As B movies go, SHORT CUT TO HELL makes it pretty far. This is a tawdrier remake of Graham Greene's source novel for THIS GUN FOR HIRE with lower-rent sets, and lead actors less charismatic, but still very effective. In fact, it's the acting that most impresses about this odd little film. Robert Ivers embodies the diminutive, tightly wound hit-man pretty convincingly; his body language and hard-edged line deliveries are spot-on. Opposite him is Georgann Johnson, who has a disarming, natural acting style. The oil and water combination of these two sustains an interesting tension for the whole movie. Their first meeting aboard a train is a case in point: a very effectively played scene. Talented Johnson never made much of a mark until television later in the 50s and 60s. In the role of Bahrwell, Jacques Aubuchon is very well cast, as are Murvyn Vye and assorted other smaller roles, including Yvette Vickers and Douglas Spencer. Scarce prints of SHORT CUT TO HELL don't always include director James Cagney's spoken introduction and sometimes a jump cut suggests editorial trimming. A restored version of this film would do justice to Cagney's gift for directing actors and a couple of fine action sequences.

This is the only film directed by James Cagney.

In Short Cut to Hell, Robert Ivers plays a hit man paid off with counterfeit money, bringing police to his door. He hops a train to Los Angeles and winds up kidnapping a young woman (Georgian Johnson) who is the girlfriend of a detective (William Bishop).

Very routine and I struggled to stay involved.

Growing up I loved the TV series It's a Great Life which starred Bishop. I suppose if I saw it now I would find it silly, who knows. Sadly he died young.

I had never seen Georgann Johnson as a young and pretty actress. She was a wonderfully talented character actress.