Veronica Lake Script Lot, Including Shooting Script for This Gun For Hire....

Click the image to load the highest resolution version.

Sold for: Sign-in or Join (free & quick)

Share this lot

Sell One of These Currency Converter

Description

Auction Info

Guides & Info

Description

Veronica Lake Script Lot, Including Shooting Script for This Gun For Hire. Veronica Lake was Paramount Studio's "Peekaboo Blonde" -- a sexy sensation who became the virtual patron saint of sultry noir femme fatales via the classic 1942 melodrama This Gun for Hire. Although she sadly was a real-life schizophrenic whose career both flared and fizzled in the 1940's, Ms. Lake left behind a fascinating cinema legacy.
This lot features seven scripts from six Veronica Lake films, starting with November 1, 1939 final script for 20th Century-Fox's The Jones Family in As Young as You Feel, in which pre-stardom Veronica played a bit part under the name of Constance Keane. Special mention must go to the thermal paper script in heavy binder for Paramount's This Gun for Hire, the racy thriller that set loose Alan Ladd as Raven, hired gunman, who dies smiling at Veronica Lake's heroine Ellen Graham. Based on the Graham Greene novel, the Albert Maltz/W.R. Burnett script has a copied pencil notation date of Oct. 20, 1941, a typed date of Oct. 21, 1941, a Paramount Story Dept. ink stamp, and "substitute pages" throughout from different dates, including October 19, 1941, November 10, 1941, and November 28, 1941. As such, we believe this to be the shooting script (This Gun for Hire was released in May of 1942) and a very desirable item. Also included: Miss Susie Slagle's (Continuity Script, March 6, 1945); Hold That Blonde (Continuity Script, June 23, 1945); Variety Girl (Censorship Dialogue Script, June 14, 1947; Release Dialogue Script, July 1, 1947); and The Sainted Sisters (Censorship Dialogue Script, Feb, 3, 1948).
Veronica Lake sadly died in 1973, at the age of only 50, due to complications from alcoholism. "I wasn't a sex symbol, I was a sex zombie," she said of her screen career. Of course, she was considerably more than that, and these scripts, all in Very Good to Excellent condition, commemorate her alluring and unforgettable screen presence.