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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.

Towards the end of Short Cut to Hell, with the two principal characters holed up in an abandoned underground storage bunker and the police cars massed outside, there's a long quotation from the doom-freighted score Miklos Rosza wrote for Double Indemnity. It's one of several arresting details the movie provides (another is a newspaper from the previous decade, with the headline 'Allies Cross Siegfried Line'), details that pique interest but go nowhere in attempting to satisfy curiosity.

Short Cut to Hell is an all but forgotten movie but a noteworthy one nonetheless, if only as the only title James Cagney ever directed. Night of the Hunter it's not (the sole directorial effort of Charles Laughton), but another point of engagement is in its being a remake of the 1942 Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake vehicle This Gun for Hire, drawn from the Graham Greene 'entertainment' of that name.

The Ladd/Lake allure didn't last into a new millennium (who knew?), but in 1957 both of them were still reasonably active, their less than glamorous (all right, alcoholic) endgames still a few years, or decades, off. Cagney chose to update them using actors without much in the way of either past or future.

In the Ladd role of the icy, isolated killer-for-hire, Robert Ivers is little more than a trenchcoat and a topper, skin and bones, who brings to mind an unlikely amalgam of Elisha Cook Jr. and James Dean. Finding himself set up through marked bills, after carrying out the two brutal murders contracted by pompous 'fatso' (Jacques Aubuchon, whose indulgences are pretty young things and peppermint patties), he eludes police, taking as hostage Georgann Johnson, a lounge singer engaged to police detective William Bishop.

Johnson proves a game gal, but in the wrong way. She has a way with a wisecrack, but it's not in the flirtatious Veronica Lake way (nor that of Lauren Bacall or Gloria Grahame); the spin she gives is more in the Eve Arden-ish, vinegar-virgin mode, less seductive than matey, even matronly. So the chemistry between captor and captive (our old friend The Stockholm Syndrome) rarely reaches reactive force. (Nor, for that matter, do the reactions between Johnson and Bishop.)

Notwithstanding its unknown cast, Short Cut to Hell doesn't have the look or feel of a B-movie, and Cagney keeps a good pace and an acceptable amount of tension (a few quite brutal scenes help to quicken the pulse as well). It's not quite clear why Cagney chose this material to direct, and he makes (or had to accept) some less than ideal choices, but he'd worked in movies long enough to insure that the movie he directed was brisk and absorbing, a better little movie than its obscurity might suggest.

Story about an antisocial hired killer who goes after an employer who double crosses him. While tracking down the men who hired him he gets involved with the female lead a night club singer on her way to Los Angeles. In the end revenge is extracted.

It is fast paced and keeps your interest especially the first hour. When the action moves to LA it starts to bog down a bit and get a little squirrelly. There is a long scene in an air raid shelter of some huge giant factory that is completely implausible...dozens of police scour the plant for hours but overlook an obvious staircase to the airraid shelter??

Still it is worth a watch I give it a 6.

The other reviews are by people much more knowledgeable about the actors and period than I...am reviewing it as a naive uninformed viewer.

RECOMMEND

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.

Peppermint-loving Jacques Aubuchon hires Robert Ivers to kill a couple of people, then pays him off with hot money. So Ivers boards the train to track down the guy who stiffed him. Seated next to Georgann Johnson, a singer who's heading to LA to work ina night club, he lifts a five-dollar bill from her. She catches it and demands her money back, then notices how hungry he is and splits a sandwich with him. Aubuchon is on the train, sees Iver, and calls the cops. Ivers forces Miss Johnson off the train with him, but they part company.... although their paths will soon cross again.

How did Jimmy Cagney come to make his sole movie as director with this remake of 1942's THIS GUN FOR HIRE? Good friend A. C. Lyles was producing it as his first picture and asked him to. It's not particularly distinguished, but then, neither was the first screen version. It's much more open in its sexuality, with a long moving shot focused on Yvette Vickers' rear as she sashays around Ivers' flop. Everyone is good, but no one is great, and lightning didn't strike the way it did with the first movie.

As a Favor for a "Producer-Friend" Legendary Actor James Cagney, in His "Senior Years" Slipped into the "Director Chair", as can be Witnessed in the Prologue with "Cagney" and His Name-Back Chair, Turns to the Camera and the Audience and Talks About "Making a Movie" for about a Minute, Emphasizing its "Unknown" Lead Actors...Robert Ivers and Georgann Johnson...

It's Notable that His Optimistic "Positive-Push" Did Nothing to Help, as the 2 Thespians went Virtually Invisible or Background for the Remainder...

Cagney's "B-Movie" Star Robert Ivers (29 Credits) did a Couple Dozen TV Shows and a Spattering of Movies with His Final Appearance, TVs "12 O' Clock High" in 1966...

Georgann Johnson with (121 Credits, Mostly TV) was More Productive Ending Her Career with TVs "Cold Case" (2007).

But It is Ivers, Stepping in the Alan Ladd "Gun for Hire" Role, that Manages to Match the "Chilling" Hit-Man Persona and is More Effective than His Co-Star...

Georgann Fails to Match the Veronica Lake Portrayal as the Empathetic and Helpful "Acquaintance" of the Fleeing "Gun-Man" that He Meets on the Train. Although She Does Try-Hard and is OK.

Cagney's Direction is Uninspired Mostly, with the Brightly-Lit Movie Counter-Productive to the "Dark-Doings".

There is a WOW of a Finale Inside a Vibrating Industrial-Plant that is "Humming" at High-Speed, Perhaps a Metaphor for the Post-War Mega-Productivity Within the Bowels of America, it is Visually a 'Stunner".

The Final Analysis is a Mediocre Affair, Engaging Enough, with a Few Pre-Violent-Induced Films, that Feels "Ahead of its Time".

It Maintains the Trend More Emphasis on the "Bad-Abusive-Home" = "Breeding-Ground for Criminals", Therapeutic Sensitivity that Gained Psychological Momentum, a Trope of Film-Noir, and Became a Trend in Hollywood After WWII.

The Killer's Opposing-Side is, Once Again, Shown by His Affection for Furry Cats.

A Not-Bad "Remake" but Did Not "Cover" the Seminal "This Gun for Hire", it was and is Too Iconic and Justifiably One of the "Start-Ups" for Film-Noir, with Ladd and Lake Becoming "Super-Stars", and that Legacy Strongly Imprinted on Hollywood-History and is Indelible.

Short Cut to Hell (1957)

A strained effort all around, including James Cagney giving a personal introduction standing next to an imposing movie camera, assuring us his two new leading actors were terrific, before we get a chance to see for ourselves. We can wonder about his motivations, but on the surface two things seem clear. One, he's trying to move from being an actor to being a director (he sort of says he's getting too old to act, interestingly). And two, he's going about it in a cheap and sort of safe way, as if Hollywood knew it wasn't going to go very far.

The result is pretty awful in enough ways to say you might just skip it. I'm a junkie for noir films, and "This Gun for Hire" is a true, early, formative classic from 1942. That one, with Alan Ladd in the lead, and Veronica Lake and Laird Cregar as support, is terrific in all the little ways that add up to something uniquely memorable, even in the hands of little known director Frank Tuttle. Now, fifteen years later, Cagney in his first and last directorial effort, remakes Tuttle's version. He sometimes matches it scene for scene (a few curious substitutions, like an air raid shelter instead of an empty railroad car) and actor for actor (the man taking Cregar's role seems to be vainly imitating him). And he leaves out a few of the key quirks that made the original more, well, original and disturbing (like Ladd's relationship to cats).

One stark difference is the different kind of female character Cagney casts, avoiding the sultry version of Veronica Lake for a very Doris Day kind of lead. And it's probably telling that these terrific new actors Cagney is using had very little in the way of careers after this. Cagney did act in a few more films, living until 1986.

If you have little patience, I think you might not make it through the first painful scene of a woman overacting her weariness in the motel hallway, but that's not fair. It does have faster and more interesting moments. In general, the filming and lighting has brightened up, losing at least the noir visual quality, maybe keeping its tonal range in line for television rebroadcast (an important concern by the late 1950s).

If you want to know the possibilities of the story at its best, start with Graham Greene's 1936 book (A Gun for Sale) and then to the seminal 1942 movie. Short Cut to Hell is an asterisk at beset, a curiosity.

Like many a film noir, this one keeps a brisk pace - and more than that, it launches into the active narrative with a sharp, quick punch. Hit men aren't exactly saints, but between Ted Berkman and Raphael Blau's adapted screenplay that paints protagonist Kyle as relatively quiet and unassuming, and the like lead performance of fresh-faced Robert Ivers, it's easy to sympathize with this one as he's forced into a hard position. The storytelling and film-making are direct and straightforward in advancing the narrative, though there's plenty of cleverness throughout in every little turn that makes Kyle rethink his path forward. Roping starry-eyed, good-natured Glory into his endeavor is more than just another turn for Kyle, but thankfully the picture declines the immediate cliches that follow from the introduction of a supporting female character. On the contrary, her presence allows the story to broaden a bit, and the nuance in Georgann Johnson's acting is a fine complement to the steady force of personality Ivers illustrates.

In all the technical aspects, including James Cagney's direction, and rounding details such as costume design, 'Short cut to hell' is well executed, if perhaps unremarkable. This is the type of feature that relies much more on the strength of its cast, and even more than that, of the tale it has to impart. One could argue that there are a couple instances in which the screenplay makes a little shortcut of its own by way of movie magic to keep the plot moving, but this is forgivable in light of how solid it is in general. The narrative feels relatively light and brusque in the broad strokes, but there's sufficient content between beginning and end to make it satisfactorily complete, and more exciting and engaging. And with that, the scene writing is wonderfully vivid, snappy and wasting no time. From one moment to the next there's enough variety in how the story is put together that it never lags or dulls, and one's attention is held fast.

One can generally depend on film noir as a genre to be enjoyable, though by no means are all titles equal, and there are some tropes and conventions that often define them. 'Short cut to hell,' despite the dark and grabbing title, is more meaningfully absorbing than many of its brethren. There is some real heart here, and impactful emotional beats. The interactions between Kyle and Glory progress in a manner that feels slow and natural, not contrived or forced, and as a result there's a humanizing element to the narrative that far exceeded my expectations. Moreover, women in supporting parts are often relegated to all but a wilting flower of an archetype, but Glory is written with complexity that allows Johnson to hold her own alongside star Ivers. At the same time, there's suspense that to some degree would seem to elevate this picture to not just a film noir, but an outright crime thriller. Obviously much credit belongs to novelist Graham Greene for penning the source material, but again I can only commend screenwriters Berkman and Blau for their fantastic work.

A content warning should be mentioned for an instance of animal cruelty, but it is a moment that actually bears weight in the story. And though I somewhat repeat myself, that's the real key here: nothing goes to waste - there is no excess - and great care and thought went into every facet of the production to bring the story to life. The effort paid off handsomely, in my opinion, because 'Short cut to hell' is readily striking as a feature that's genuinely more well-rounded than a lot of its contemporaries, even as it's cut from the same cloth. This is a really good time, and it leaves an impression. Though not necessarily as well known among countless pictures of the same genre, for my part I give 'Short cut to hell' a hearty recommendation - these 90 minutes are well worth the time it takes to watch, and is a viewing experience I look forward to enjoying again some day.

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.

This is the only film James Cagney directed, and for a first-time effort, this remake of THIS GUN FOR HIRE is not too shabby. Cagney supposedly made the film as a favor to producer A.C. Lyles, and he did not really intend to pursue a career as a director. While it may not be up to the original, the film still has a good deal of Cagney-esque energy, and enough suspense to sustain viewer interest.

Actress Georgann Johnson is cast in the Veronica Lake role, and she applies a serious amount of realism. At one point, she has to walk down the aisle of a train, and she does it very subtly as if her equilibrium is off-balance, which if you think about it, it should be. How come other actors do not walk realistically on trains, planes and other fast-moving transportation in movies? Maybe they should consult Miss Johnson for pointers.

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.

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.

I would have expected far more from the only movie directed by Jimmy Cagney the legend. This is not a so bad movie, but bland, a simple B movie nothing else. The main character, some kind of Alan Ladd in THIS GUN FOR HIRE, before Jean-Pierre Melville's LE SAMOURAI, and speaking of Le SAMOURAI, with Alain Delon, here you also have this lead character, a hired killer who loves cats more than humans, as Delon in SCORPIO. Besides this, especially the short sequence, dialogue line when the killer talks about his childhood, there is nothiing really personal, as you could have guessed from director Cagney. Why did he did this movie anyway?