[profh0011]

I've been a fan of Mike Hammer since 1983 when the 1st Stacy Keach tv-film debuted.  Well, today, I'm starting a new marathon.  I figured I'd set up a new thread just for this, and re-post my IMDB review.


I, THE JURY
(Parkland Pictures Inc. / 1953)

My FAVORITE Mike Hammer!

I've seen pretty much every version of Mike Hammer on film over the decades, yet this somehow became my favorite! Biff Elliot is tough, brutal, unstoppable, yet also honest, loyal and incorruptible. Faced with an impenetable mystery-- HE figured it out! What a guy!

Margaret Sheridan ("THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD") also became my favorite Velda. Smart, dependable, and no slouch in the looks department. Preston Foster may also be my favorite Pat Chambers. He tells Mike to follow the rules... then goes out of his way to help him break them. What a pal!

When it comes to murder mysteries, I'm usually good-- but this one left me completely in the dark. It eventually made sense... after 6 or 7 viewings. But that's not what this film is about. It's all about mood, and suspense, and watching Mike steamroll his way thru suspects and beatings until he knows who killed his best friend... and what he has to do about it.

Among the supporting cast are Peggy Castle (the too-cool psychiatrist), Alan Reed (the mobster), Joe Besser (the elevator operator), Nestor Paiva (the bar owner), Elisha Cook Jr. (the innocent halfwit someone tries to frame as part of the mob).

This film is DARK, in more ways than one. Mike's office is in the Bradbury Building (also seen in such films as "MARLOWE", "BLADE RUNNER", and the Outer Limits episode "Demon With A Glass Hand") and is the scene of a BRUTAL fight scene near the climax.

WHY was this team not brought back for the other 2 Hammer films of the 50s-- or the 50s TV series? WHY has this fallen into public domain, without a proper video release? WHY is Hammer hated by so many critics, yet loved by so many fans?

For many years, I put up with a terrible TV print with commercial breaks. Now I have it on DVD, and I may never stop watching it.
     (11-29-2019)







Dran Hamilton-- something WEIRD about this girl...


Joe Besser watches as Velda plants one right on Mike.


I love the description one IMDB reviewer gave Biff Elliot's Mike:  "Like a Dead End Kid, all grown up and packing a rod."


Margaret Sheridan-- my favorite Velda!


Peggy Castle as Charlotte Manning, the psychiatrist.  Whenever the scene where she's introduced comes up, I find myself thinking it's a tribute to FAREWELL MY LOVELY.


Elisha Cook Jr. buys the big one dressed in a Santa Claus suit.
Pat was WRONG. A later scene has the ballistics man say Bobo was killed by the SAME gun they found on him. So he wasn't a hit man-- he was killed for trying to warn Mike. BOY, is this thing confusing as it goes!


Until last year, Preston Foster was my favorite Pat Chambers!


"The WORLD, Mike!  It could be OURS!!"
"I NEVER WANTED THE WORLD!!!!!!!  Just enough room for the two of us."

[profh0011]

"The WORLD, Mike!  It could be OURS!"
"I NEVER WANTED the world!  Just enough room for the two of us."
"I'm frightened, Mike.  Hold me.  HOLD me!"









"BLAM! BLAM!"



"Good bye, baby."
"How COULD you?"
"It was easy."



😄

[profh0011]

Mickey Spillane wrote comics for Martin Goodman in the late 40s. He was all set to do a new crime series named "Mike Danger", when some kind of bottom fell out of the market, probably due to the anti-comics witch-hunt that was going on. So instead, he spent about a week writing this novel, and it make him rich. Sheesh.

Some producer named Victor Saville (if I got this right) with an outfit called Parklane Pictures bought outright the film rights to 4 of Spillane's novels-- 3 Hammers & one miscellaneous. It's like what happened with Fleming's "Casino Royale". No licensing of rights-- they got it, and for anyone else to ever do those books, they'd have to buy them from Parklane. "Casino" went thru 3 or 4 owners before EON got their hands on it in 2006. Crazy, isn't it?


This movie is nuts. I'm good at mysteries, but I had to see this at least 6 times-- and read the Wikipedia article about the novel-- before it started to make sense. I've probably seen it a dozen times now, and I feel like I'm STILL piecing bits of it together.

Describing it backwards... it's kinda like this.   (*****SPOILERS!!!!!*****)

A mobster named George Kalecki (played by Alan Reed, alias Fred Flintstone), for 20 years had a younger boyfriend named Al Kinds. They travelled around Europe together, Kinds posing as a college student, collecting all sorts of stolen art pieces-- jewelry and the like-- from various countries, and selling them on the black market. As someone described it, Kinds was also a scout for new talent. I suspect what they meant was, for a prostitution ring. Kalecki also had a guy working for him in charge of a number racket. All kinds of stuff.

Then one day Al Kinds made the mistake of going to see Charlotte Manning, a fancy psychiatrist. Under hypnosis, he told her about the rackets. And suddenly, she saw they could be a lot more profitable.

Meanwhile, an old army buddy of Mike's, Jack Williams, had helped a girl named Myrna kick a drug habit, and got her into therapy-- with Charlotte. They often had group therapy sessions, and Jack, a former cop turned insurance investigator, figured out what was going on. He got everybody involved together for a Christmas party, and was about to blow the lid off it, when Charlotte murdered him with a .45.

As Mike started his investigation, it fit the fan, and you had two groups killing each other off. Kalecki and his numbers men on one side, Al Kinds, a pair of twin sisters, and a prostitute posing as a dance instructor, all working now for Charlotte. There was also a feeble-minded guy named Bobo who used to run numbers, who found out Mike was being targetted, who got killed after he tried to warn him. They planted the murder weapon on him to make it look like he was the killer, but later, the ballistics man said he was killed by the same gun that killed 3 others.

Charlotte pumped Myrna full of drugs, desperate to find out if Jack told Mike anything. Next thing, Myrna was a victm of a hit-and-run. It was at this point Mike figured it out.

But see, it took me nearly a dozen views of the film to realize that Charlotte only killed 2 people. It's just that she was responsible for all the other killings, since she convinced Al Kinds to break with Kalecki. Ironically, Kalecki's numbers man killed Al Kinds because he was "getting above himself", and Kalecki, not knowing this, told Hammer "Whoever did it, I want them taken care of, you can name your own price." Later, when Mike killed Kalecki in self-defense, his number guys came after Hammer for it. Totally nuts!

So at the end, Mike confronted Charlotte in the scene I quoted. As he held her, she had this evil smile on her face as she reached for the hidden gun that she'd used to kill Jack with. She pointed it at Mike... and then, you heard 2 shots. Mike shot first.

I've had this bootleg DVD, recorded off some cable channel, for 2 years now. I'm hoping somebody will eventually do a proper restoration, clean it up and put it out in widescreen.

[profh0011]

And now, here's something else that crazy. Somehow, in a 5-year period, no less than 8 different actors played Mike Hammer. This just makes no sense to me at all!

1 - First you had I, THE JURY. This starred Biff Elliot, who 75% of reviewers complain was miscast and dragged the film down. I thought he was perfect. You might remember him as the first guy to get killed in "The Devil In The Dark".

2-3 - A different company got the rights to do a radio show, which starred Larry Haines, and later Ted De Corsia. Crazy thing, the show was called THAT HAMMER GUY. Huh? I finally heard some episodes online the other week. The Comic Book Plus site, which had a gigantic old time radio collection to hear for free, oddly, doesn't have this, so it's hard to track down.

4 - Then, Parklane (I think, not really sure yet) decided to do a tv pilot. They got Blake Edwards to write & direct it, and it starred Brian Keith. I haven't seen it yet-- but I just got it on DVD last week. The network turned it down as being too violent.

5 - Mickey Spillane played Mike in a story on a record LP which also contained 4 instrumental jazz tracks. I've heard this online years back.

6 - Parklane decided to do a 2nd movie in the style of the "too violent" unsold TV pilot. Unfortunately-- in my view-- they hired Robert Aldrich (THE DIRTY DOZEN) to do it. And, he HATED Spillane and his work. So he & his screenwriter set about making a movie that would depict the characters in the worst-possible light, as amoral scumbags. Ironically, KISS ME DEADLY is the best-looking so-called Hammer film of the 50s. It reminds me of an episode of THE OUTER LIMITS. But there's no way the character Ralph Meeker played was "Mike Hammer". The film was so nasty, the Production Code people insisted the ending be edited to make it look like "Mike" and "Velda" got killed. Sheesh.

7 - So then Parkland tried a 2nd TV pilot, this time with Robert Bray (who, in the mid-60s, starred on LASSIE). This too was unsold, but this time, they went back, shot additional footage and released it as a movie-- MY GUN IS QUICK. It's okay. It looks really cheap, and Bray was alright, but not as intense as Elliot.

8 - Then a different company, Revue Studios (known for low-budget TV series) got it into their heads that Darren McGavin would be perfect to play Mike. But he turned them down. TWICE. On the third try, he said, "The only way this could work would be if you played it with a light touch and a lot of humor". Sounds almost like William Dozier, don't it? Well, this one sold-- but as first-run syndication (like SEA HUNT). Ted DeCorsia played Pat in the pilot, but once it sold, was replaced by the MUCH-better Bart Burns.

When I first saw this last year, my head exploded. I thought, "THIS is what he calls a light touch?" Now, the pilot-- run totally out of sequence-- was goofier than most. But after that, the show feels like THE UNTOUCHABLES, except, somehow, McGavin makes all the violence & brutality a lot more fun than it was on the Robert Stack series. I couldn't stop watching. Before I knew it, McGavin & Burns became my favorite Mike & Pat. Probably because of the half-hour format, there was no Velda. She was mentioned in 2 episodes, but never seen, and after that, we always saw Mike typing up his own paperwork. (In I, THE JURY, Mike said he'd be a cop, except he hates the paperwork-- heh.)


Spillane, meanwhile, stopped writing. Someone asked him why. He said he only writes when he needs the money. As someone who loves to write, I feel like that attitude is downright criminal.

(Max Allan Collins clued me in that Ted DeCorsia did in fact play Mike on the radio show.  From another website, I had the impression he played Pat.)

[The Australian Panther]

Re Darren McGavin,
looking up an obscure actor, I came across the IMDB entry for the Night Stalker TV series.
IMDB lists 22 episodes - mini-movies actually - in the series. But. Only 20 of these star Darren McGavin and Simon Oakland. Huh?  How was that possible. Like doing a Laurel and Hardy movie without Laurel and Hardy. Why bother?
Worse!
2004 - 2006 the series was revived [10 nepisodes]  with someone called Stuart Townsend playing Kolchak and someone called Cotter Smith playing Tony Vincenzo. Both have been around a while playing mainly supporting parts, but neither has anything major to his credit as far as I can see. Again, why bother. The show was of its time, if you like the basic concept create something new that's of its own time. That's how Nightstalker spawned the X-files, believe it or not.   
There is also a 2016 movie called Nightstalker - this one no relation at all.

An account of serial killer Richard Ram?rez and his rampage in California during the mid-1980s. 

Based on a book and starring Lou Diamond Phillips. I usually avoid anything about serial killers but I do like Lou Diamond Phillips, so if I accidentally come across that one I might give it a look.
Re the original, I do have someowhere a boxed set of the McGavin Night Stalker, but I don't think it runs 20 episodes. I might have to upgrade.
Moonstone did a number of Kolchak comics, some of which are unlikely team-ups.   

[profh0011]

Darren McGavin is NOT an "obscure actor".




The ABC Movie of the Week in the 1970s was a long-running, successful series of TV-movies, all 75 minutes long to fit a 90-minute time-slot... something that just no longer existed once the 80s rolled around.

After MGM totally FUCKED OVER Dan Curtis' NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS-- cutting around 25 minutes out of it just so they could issue it first-run as a double-feature with the previous HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS-- Curtis swore he'd never work with MGM again.  Good for him.

I've read online that back in the 90s, all the missing footage for NIGHT... was found and a restoration / reconstruction was planned.  And then... geez, I don't know.  Seems like we're STILL waiting for it.  WTF?

Truthfully, I've read, in gruesome detail, what the full-length story was supposed to be like.  And, while it might make more sense, whle it might have better pacing and flow, while it might work better as a work of art... the ending STILL SUCKED and didn't change a bit.  So, I'm not necessarily in a hurry to see a film that was basically a 2nd-rate take-off on Roger Corman's THE HAUNTED PALACE to begin with.  First time I saw HAUNTED..., I recognized the similarities, and realized, right where NIGHT... ended abruptly, HAUNTED... started to get REALLY good.  I guess while Dan Curtis was good... Roger Corman was WAY BETTER.

So... Curtis did a film based on an at-the-time unpublished novel by Richard Matheson (WHOA!!!), and THE NIGHT STALKER was born.  And... the damned thing got the HIGHEST RATINGS for any TV movie ever at the time.  So it was inevitable a sequel would happen.

About a year later... THE NIGHT STRANGLER aired.  And it did pretty damned good, too.  In late 1992, while visiting my brother in Seattle, one of the things we took in was the "underground city" featured in the film.  I was amused that the tour guide referenced the 1st movie... rather than the 2nd one.  Oh well!  I suppose for many, the 2nd film tended to be the forgotten one... even though it was arguably better, and, it's the one Dan Curtis directed himself.

Now... a 3rd film was touted... but... things stalled when no agreement could be reached with ABC.  Those A** H***s.  So, it never happened.  Instead, Dan Curtis had it completely re-written, and did THE NORLISS TAPES with Roy Thinnes (the guy from THE INVADERS).  While I saw the first 2 movies when they were first-run, I have to admit, I never heard of this one until decades later.  And then, a few years ago, I saw it on Youtube.  It was interesting... but a lot more depressing... and it had an ending that just didn't seem like it could possibly segue easily into a sequel.  So I guess it was fated to always be a stand-alone.



ABC still wanted to do more with Carl Kolchak... but Dan Curtis removed himself from the project, I guess sort of in the way John Carpenter did HALLOWEEN after the 3rd film.

I read they planned to do a one-hour weekly series, THE NIGHT STALKER.  And I wondered... HOW the hell were they gonna do this?  Wouldn't they run out of monsters pretty quick?  Wouldn't a series of tv-movies allow for better scripts, more character development, and so on?  Understand, I was a huge fan of the NBC MYSTERY MOVIES, where each series did between 4 to 8 stories a year, allowing producers to weed out lesser stories and flesh out the ones that did get made.

Oh well.  THE NIGHT STALKER premiered, and wouldn't you know it, Philly's channel 6, the ABC affiliate, started FUCKING with the show right from the start.  The 1st episode we saw was "The Zombie".  Turns out, the 1st episode was "The Ripper".  Somehow, that one DIDN'T air in Philly.  W--T--F???

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised, as the show seemed much better than I expected, and probably much better than it deserved.  Turns out, Darren McGavin got a agreement with ABC to act as the show's PRODUCER.  In other words, HE would call the shots.  I guess this is similar to what happenbed in the late 80s-early 90s when Peter Falk took over COLUMBO as co-executive producer, and in my view, the series IMPROVED tremendously.  (When Fred Dryer did the same with HUNTER, that show went into the toilet... but let's not think about that one... heh.)

HOWEVER... behind his back, ABC hired someone else to officially producer the show, and for the entire season, this clown and McGavin (and his wife) were constantly at odds, fighting non-stop.  The other guy wanted to drag the show down to how the network wanted it, McGavin & his wife fought hard every week to make it BETTER.  It wore them out.

One change nobody ever seems to remember, was that about 2 or 3 weeks in, the name of the show changed from THE NIGHT STALKER to KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER.  I'm not making this up.  I think everyone assumed from the titles of the 2 movies that "Night Stalker" referred to the vampire... here, it was referring to the reporter.  Also, McGavin wanted the show to delve into political corruption and the like, but ABC insisted on "monsters of the week".  Hmm.

After only 20 weeks, totally worn-out, McGavin & his wife (she guest-starred in the final story as a cop) WALKED and the show ended, several weeks early.  And never came back.


The CBS Late Movie in the early 80s ran a MUTILATED version of the show.  Every episode was missing the opening theme song, and 4 of the episodes were missing, having been previously RE-CUT by some DRUG-LADEN goon at Universal into a pair of "movies", where 2 completely-unrelated stories were inter-cut to make it look like one big complicated story.  This was the exact same SHIT Universal did with the 6 one-hour 1st-season episodes of McCLOUD, and to this day, it looks like the only place you can get the proper episodes of that are from Australia (Region 4).  They didn't include the 2 earlier movies, either.

NOTHING since, in my book, is worth watching or discussing.



Anyway, having been a fan of Darren McGavin since 1972, I couldn't wait to get my hands on his MIKE HAMMER series.  Once I did, I couldn't stop watching it.

[Captain Audio]

I liked the Dan Curtis films starring Jack Palance as Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.,

[profh0011]

I liked the Dan Curtis films starring Jack Palance as Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.,

He did a lot of good stuff!

I noticed that film adaptations of "Jekyll & Hyde" tend to be more different and varied than even "Dracula" film adaptations.  There's quite a number that are all really good, each in very different ways.

There's a line from the Palance film that sticks in my mind...  "You know, shyness CAN be cured."

One bit I think most fans are unaware of, the music Robert Cobert composed for the 1968 film was later reused in later episodes of DARK SHADOWS (not the other way around).  Isn't that wild?

Another favorite of mine from Curtis is his 2-part late-night FRANKENSTEIN with Robert Foxworth and Bo Svenson.  It follows the novel more than most, but with certain changes here and there, and the end result is a tragedy of heart-breaking proportions.  It's SO sad, that's probably the only reason I haven't watched it more often.

[profh0011]

Just posted on Max Allan Collins' FB page:

The 1954 pilot was interesting. I don't know what was involved in "reconstruction", but I only saw one scene where the sound was out of synch (the same problem turned up in "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror" for a few minutes in the middle of the movie-- and that was the extensive restoration on the MPI box set, heh).

I never saw anybody pull that shower faucet stunt before! Nice how he got one of the hit men to kill his boss. Brian Keith was okay, but too rough (even compared with Biff Elliot), and I really didn't like his attitude toward Pat Chambers. I see so many cop shows where you've got a cop always coming down on the hero, and what I like about Mike & Pat is, they're FRIENDS, even if it gets a little strained sometimes. I guess I can see why this didn't sell. MY question-- again-- WHY didn't Victor Saville use the same cast he had in the movie? Very annoying.

I grew up watching "FAMILY AFFAIR", and also saw Brian Keith in a pile of other things, including the pilot for "THE FUGITIVE", "SHARKY'S MACHINE" (typical of the 1980s, way, way too violent and nasty for its own good), and "THE GAMBLER RETURNS: THE LUCK OF THE DRAW" where he reprised he role of "The Westerner". He was pretty cool.

Listened to "Tonight My Love" again. Ehh. I haven't looked it up, but I'm guessing by the length, this was a 10" EP. About the ending... I don't care if Mickey Spillane wrote this himself, I CAN'T see Velda as an ex-prostitute. Not right.

By the way, I have the other side of the EP. Let me know if you'd like to hear Stan Purdy's 4 tracks. I could e-mail you MP3s easy!

[profh0011]

JESUS!!!  Well this would have made an appropriate bonus track on the DVD.  What a confusing mess...

Great to know that I now have the very 1st thing Blake Edwards ever wrote or directed. I really do need to track down the "PETER GUNN" series one of these days.


Richard Lewis on Mickey Spillane and hiring Blake Edwards and Brian Keith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0erp8qLvz4

[The Australian Panther]

Re Darren McGavin.

Re Night Stalker. The Original scriptwriter was Richard Matheson.
Here is the script for the first movie.
https://www.scripts.com/script/the_night_stalker_14792

And here, from   
https://www.darrenmcgavin.net/unproduced_ns_scripts.htm
is the unproduced script from the projected third movie.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The Unproduced Scripts

The third Movie-of-the Week Night Stalker script was titled "The Night Killers."  Writing credit was given to Richard Matheson and William F. Nolan.  The script, dated Jan. 15, 1974 (under the Dan Curtis Productions banner), proves one thing, if nothing else:  after two previous movies, the third was little more than a rehash of the first two, changing the setting but not the "formula." There is scant originality in this movie and if it had been filmed, it's doubtful a series would have followed. 

ABC contracted the Night Stalker series for 26 scripts; only twenty were actually produced. If you think that is a sin, read the following excerpts from several unproduced Night Stalker scripts and see if you don?t have second thoughts.

And here is a blog dedicated to Night Stalker. Good value. Dive in!
It Couldn't Happen Here...
https://akolchakaday.blogspot.com/

[profh0011]

Without going into them in detail, I can simply say this was the very thing I was concerned about back when it was happening.  HOW wold you do a weekly NIGHT STARLKER without it being even more formulaic than the Adam West BATMAN?  (heeheehee)

what I thought would have been a better idea, was simply a series of TV movies, where, at least, each one could be developed better than one-hour weekly episodes could be.

It's probably a good thing McGavin walked off after 20 weeks.

[profh0011]

You know, I keep really wanting to like "MY GUN IS QUICK" (1957), but the film doesn't want to make it easy.

I read somewhere this was really an UNSOLD TV PILOT with some padding, and viewed now in that light, I can see it. All the interior sets look WAY too cheap, the directing is flat, and the only decent acting turns out to be from the main villain. With this kind of track record, you'd think Mickey Spillane didn't like or trust women. (HEH)

I just noticed that Whitney Blake-- WHAT A DOLL!!-- returned in what was apparently the PILOT of the Darren McGavin series. She was also in 122 episodes of "HAZEL", and, was one of the 3 people credited as creator of "ONE DAY AT A TIME". How about that!

Apparently, both Alexander Courage AND John Williams composed the music for this. Another case where the music is better than the show.

WHERE did they get that AWFUL hat Robert Bray wore in this thing? Darren McGavin never wore one that looked this bad.

The sad thing is, between "KISS ME DEADLY" (impossible to follow and vile & nasty beyond belief), "MY GUN IS QUICK" (cheap and totally lacking in style) and "THE GIRL HUNTERS" (depressing, viscious and pointless), this one features my favorite Mike out of those three. He's still not as good as Kevin Dobson, Armand Assante, Stacy Keach, Rob Estes-- or my real favorite, Biff Elliot.

Somebody should have really B****-slapped Victor Saville and put him out of our misery. (He didn't have anything to do with the McGavin series, did he?)

[profh0011]

Just watched what I now believe are the first 2 episodes...

"Just Around The Coroner"

MY GOD, Darren McGavin is such a HUGE improvement over Robert Bray (and Brian Keith, and Mickey Spillane, and Ralph Meeker). And he's got a cooler car. I can really see why the producer hounded him until he agreed to do the show.

Velda is mentioned 3 TIMES in this story. But never seen. NOR is his office! NOR is Pat (though he talks to him, unseen, over the phone). It continues to amaze me how they can cram so many complex plots into a half-hour show (not unlike Gerry Anderson's "THE PROTECTORS" 15 years later). I had to see this one 4 times before I finally "got" exactly what was going on.

And here's something I hadn't noticed before. This episode featured Whitney Blake-- who was the main villain in the previous film, "MY GUN IS QUICK"!

"Death Takes An Encore"

The VERY FIRST shot in this is the door of Mike's office. It's like introducing a character for the first time. The plot, when it develops, turns out to be sort of a variation on the previous story, with an angry guy bursting in on a woman and another man. I've seen this show sometimes do 3 variations on plots in a row, crazy as that is.

HALFWAY thru, we get our first view of Pat Chambers. Who isn't very likable in this. Ted DeCorsia, in all likelihood, was cast, then replaced-- which makes way more sense, to me, than if he was filling in, in a later episode. Once they had a regular Pat, if Bart Burns was unavailable some week, it would have been much easier to just have some other police captain, than a different actor playing the same one.

As far as I can recall (and I've watched the entire series 3 times now), this is the ONLY episode in which Mike "dresses up" (as he calls it), going undercover as some other personality. Also, the scene on the waterfront turns up in the OPENING CREDITS, while the shot of Mike walking down the corridor to the morgue was used as the opening on the DVD set.

There are noticably 2 slightly-different opening credits-- one where Mike looks serious, the other where he gives a big smile. I'm gonna take notes this time, as it's pretty obvious to me the "serious" credits were only used on-- I bet-- the first 13 episodes, which is how much they typically order to see at first to see if a show sinks or swims.

The order on the DVDs is very different from that listed at the IMDB. Unlike "UFO", it doesn't appear either are production order. Very strange.

"The High Cost Of Dying", first on the DVD set, has the "smiling" opening, which suggests to me it was done later but shoved up front. Bart Burns became my favorite Pat. He sometimes gets angry at Mike for his methods, but as with Biff Elliot & Preston Foster, you can really see that, deep down, these guys are FRIENDS and do like each other, something I just haven't gotten with any of these other early Mike-Pat combos.

[profh0011]

I wanted to see the transition from Robert Bray to Darren McGavin.  Well, now I have.  But I watched the McGavin series 3 times in a year, and am not in a hurry to do the whole thing (76 episodes) a 4th time this soon.  So, I jumped ahead to the next item, several years later...

THE GIRL HUNTERS
(Fellane  /  UK  /  1963)

So much depends on personal taste.  Sadly, I NEVER liked this movie.  I didn't like the idea that Mike became an alcoholic and a bum because he thought Velda had died, and that his good friend Pat Chambers came to HATE him, partly because HE was in love with Velda.  In retrospect, it's too damned "Denny O'Neil"-- and I absolutely HATED when O'Neil had Tony Stark fall off the wagon and let his entire life disintegrate for 3 WHOLE YEARS.  It's not the kind of story I want to see with a character I like, and it's nothing I would ever write myself.

Mickey Spillane's not bad in this, it's the film that drags him down.  And he wrote it.  So maybe I can blame him.  Sheesh.

Scott Peters, he's terrible. How can a writer do this to his own characters?  It's bad enough when other writers (in corporate-owned series) do it to characters they didn't create.

I also deeply resent the way that Velda is the focus of the entire story, and while we find out she's still alive, we NEVER see her, not even at the very end of the film!

Several of the supporting characters are quite good in this.  I especially liked Lloyd Nolan as the Fed.  Boy, "Michael Shayne" really got nasty in his old age, didn't he?  (I've seen several of his films recently.  They're crazy fun.)

The whole story trajectory of Mike coming back from the gutter, sobering up, getting on the track of a killer and one more complex, impenetrable mystery, getting his office back, GETTING HIS GUN PERMIT back (thanks to Rickerby), all makes this feel like the pilot for a revived series.  (It also reminds me of what first Gerard Jones-- and, 19 years later-- Geoff Johns-- did with Hal Jordan's GREEN LANTERN, twice bringing him back from the brink others had tossed him into.) So WHY was this the last Mike Hammer film until MARGIN FOR MURDER in 1981 ?  It really seems to me that movies in general got so dark and nasty & cynical and viscious, by rights, Hammer should have been a huge success in the 1970s, instead of dropping further off the map than the character himself did here between stories.

I love the music.

"I never hit dames.  I always kick 'em."  My favorite line in the film.

I can't comment on this without discussing Shirley Eaton.  Call it personal taste, but she's long been my favorite Sean Connery BOND girl.  And she was only in GOLDFINGER for 5 minutes before getting killed.  Damn.  But in the years since, I've seen her on THE SAINT with Roger Moore (she was terrific), in several CARRY ON films (ditto) and in the 2nd adaptation of TEN LITTLE INDIANS with Hugh O'Brien (ditto).  THE GIRL HUNTERS may be her biggest role ever.  Damn shame she turned out to be the MAIN VILLAIN.  That's 4 Hammer films in a row where the lead woman turned out to be the main baddie.  A shame, as of the 4, Eaton was my favorite-- before she tried to kill Mike at the end.  "SO LONG, BABE."  Maybe Spillane did have a "problem" with women?

I understand Spillane hated Communists.  Did he ever write about the connection between the Bosheviks and Wall Street, who backed their revolution in 1918?  When Stalin kicked out the Wall Street characters, they switched sides and began financing Adolph Hitler.  And I'm pretty sure not one of them ever went to prison over it.  Bastards.

[profh0011]

MARGIN FOR MURDER
(Hamner Productions / 1981)

After an 18-YEAR break, somebody finally did a new Mike Hammer movie. I first heard about this after-the-fact, when Mickey Spillane was interviewed on Philly's WWDB (then a talk-show station). He talked about how they'd done a TV pilot that didn't sell, someone else did a theatrical movie he disavowed (he wasn't getting a penny for that one), and they'd just done a 2nd TV-movie they had high hopes for. THAT interview was what got me hooked on Mike Hammer. I was so into videotaping shows at the time, I taped it without seeing it first. Been collecting Mike Hammer ever since.

At some point, CBS reran the earlier movie. It's been awhile since I've seen it. It's not bad, in an early-80s kinda way. You gotta remember just how toned-down and watered-down ANY cop shows were in the late 70s to realize that ANYTHING with any kind of violence or excitement of ANY kind had been verbotten, and what a pleasant shock it was to see that kind of stuff begin to return when 1981 rolled around. (This debuted a month after Robert Stack's "STRIKE FORCE", which I loved.)

Ever since I read the newspaper strip, I've had a fixed idea in my head of what Mike should look like. to me, Biff Elliot, Darren McGavin, and Kevin Dobson had the right look. Dobson's hair-trigger temper and casual brutality reminds me now a BIT of Biff Elliot (who I hadn't seen back then). He's like a somewhat more handsome version, but at the same time, somehow LESS intelligent. When his best friend on the police force insists they go to his office and he IGNORES him, I'm wondering if there's anything going on above the shoulders at all.

Cindy Pickett's nice, though by the end, her repeated pleas to walk away and let the cops handle it started to get on my nerves. I suspect most Veldas would just shrug and get on with backing up his vendetta by then. They seemed more intent on making a romance between them a thing here, while in the follow-up they pretty much DROPPED that completely.

Charles Hallahan's okay, but not my idea of Pat. I liked him MUCH better on "HUNTER". I like how in this story they acknowledge that Mike used to be a cop (like Philip Marlowe had been). My favorite bit was when Pat told Mike flat-out that Mike was the "number one suspect" in a murder-- UNLESS he had a good "character witness"-- like, HIM. Heh. "You gotta way of putting things."

(I'm having trouble finding decent pics from this movie online.)



I see Dan Haller was the director. He did some fabulous work as art director on several Roger Corman films, and did some terrific films himself, like "THE DUNWICH HORROR" or "War of the Gods", arguably the most STAR TREK-like story ever on "BATTLESTAR GALACTICA".

The music was more limited and monotonous on this than it was in "THE GIRL HUNTERS". I was surprised it was by Nelson Riddle. I mean, damn, he did better work on "BATMAN" and "THE UNTOUCHABLES"!

It looked to me like Dobson had the SAME set for his apartment that Stacy Keach had 2 years later.

I'm trying to figure out how Mike went thru 3 cars in one story.

So many Hammer stories seem impossible to follow, the first half of this one seemed almost too simple. then it got complicated... but not too much. It made me think this might have been a one-hour pilot PAINFULLY stretched out to two hours. The scenes in the disco nightclub went on too long for my tastes.

I know it made sense how it ended, but I bet almost everyone who saw this was disappointed that there wasn't a shootout or even a fistfight in the climax.

I just looked up John Considine, who played the mob lawyer. ("One step below child molesters" -- great line.) Seems the only other thing I ever saw him in was "THE OUTER LIMITS" episode "The Man Who Was Never Born", one of 3 different episodes of that show that apparently inspired the movie "THE TERMINATOR".

Aside from what I've pointed out, any idea WHY this version wasn't picked up for a series?

I'm also curious, I've heard the story of how Jay Bernstein met Mickey Spillane and a lifelong friendship and partnership was formed. Was the 1982 "I THE JURY" inspired because of THIS film? It's nuts how, after 18 years of nothing, we got 3 new versions of Mike Hammer in 3 years.

I was reminded of what an UGLY hat Robert Bray wore. At least Kevin Dobson had a GOOD-looking hat.

[Captain Audio]

John Considine was the Older Brother of Tim Considine who recently passed away at the age of 81.

[profh0011]

John Considine was the Older Brother of Tim Considine who recently passed away at the age of 81.

I thought they might be related.  I've seen photos of Tim Considine from the early 60s, he looked like he would have been PERFECT to play Peter Parker back then.

[profh0011]

Just ran across an interesting bit of trivia. I was watching arguably one of the most memorable episodes of "THE TIME TUNNEL", the one about Pearl Harbor, and saw a familiar face. Turns out I'd seen Lew Gallo on a "LOST IN SPACE" just a couple weeks ago. He's one of those actors who had a long career mostly doing almost-invisible supporting roles for decades. But, he also moved into producing. In addition to "THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR", "THAT GIRL" and "LOVE AMERICAN STYLE", he was also the producer of the Stacy Keach "MIKE HAMMER", from the pilot, right up to the point where Keach was stupid enough to get himself thrown in the UK slammer for posession of drugs.

The things I learn on the IMDB! 😁

[profh0011]

Well, you knew this was coming...

"I, THE JURY"
(American Cinema Productions (ACP) / Larco Productions / Pellepont Investment Company / Solofilm / Dist. -- 20th Century-Fox / 1982)

I haven't seen this since I got the bootleg DVD of the 1953 film. This reminds me of a Bond film in a lot of ways. It takes the name of a classic novel, a couple of scenes, and several character names, and creates an almost ENTIRELY-NEW story from it. Jack Williams' murder and the finale with Mike & Charlotte are intact; pretty much, NOTHING ELSE. Geez.

This also strikes me as the reverse of "KISS ME DEADLY". Both are what I'd describe as "SICK F***s" of films... but while "DEADLY" continues, even now, to leave a sour, disturbing taste for me, "JURY" is a FUN flick. Gorgeous women, lots of action, lots of NUDITY, and a whole lot of great lines.

With all I've read in the last week, I have to wonder, what it might have been like if anybody else had put up the money for this thing, and if Larry Cohen had been able to direct it himself. I read as soon as he was fired (as a scapegoat for the producers running out of money and eventually going bankrupt), he jumped right into his next project, "Q: THE WINGED SERPENT", and got it finished way before "I, THE JURY" was. And you know something's really wrong, when, according to the IMDB, "JURY" was released in West Germany in April but not in the US until October. WTF?

Assante's cool and fun, but doesn't really look or "feel" like Mike to me. But at least I can root for him-- unlike, you know-- Ralph Meeker (HAH!). Laurene Landon seems too soft-spoken, and, she's BLONDE as can be, but despite this, I might just rank her right now as my 3rd-favorite Velda (right after Tanya Roberts, who's my #2). I like how she seems the brains of the outfit, and can really handle herself-- well, until that run-in with the brainwashed psycho.

Paul Sorvino's not bad-- but I don't like Pat being coerced by the CIA. Alan King's not bad-- but he's no Fred Flintstone (HAH!!). In the original story, Kalecki was the guy in charge of ALL the rackets-- the one whose organization was being taken over by someone else. Here, he's just a go-between who, like Pat, is being pushed around by the CIA. Tsk!

Barbara Carrera is FABULOUS. But she's no "Charlotte Manning". Totally-different personality. As flashy as this film is, watching it again actually increases my appreciation for the earlier film.

I love the music. Bill Conti's score for "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" has long been one of my top faves. It's funny how here and there he keeps slipping in a bar of "Peter Gunn"-- when you consider Blake Edwards worked on both "HAMMER" and "GUNN" (something I never knew until very recently).

I might appreciate this better if they'd changed the name of the movie. Of course, Larry Cohen bought the rights to those 3 stories Victor Saville had. How different things might have been if this film had been a hit, and Cohen had been able to make all 3 films as he hoped?

More what ifs-- imagine this film with Bruce Willis & Angie Dickinson. SHE played baddies in 2 Darren McGavin episodes! (Have I mentioned in the last couple days how much I LOVE his series?)

My VHS copy, taped off Cinemax (probably) is fullscreen, and fuzzy, but the sound is worse. I actually can't make out half the dialogue. YEESH! Well, the whole point of this current run is to plow thru my Hammer tapes "ONE more time" before upgrading. And I know this film's on BLU-RAY. I'm dying for somebody to put the Biff Elliot film on BLU-RAY. I'll be the first customer (HEH).

[profh0011]

Well, you knew THIS was coming!!

"MURDER ME, MURDER YOU"
(Columbia Pictures Television / Jay Bernstein Productions / 1983)

Given that I spent much of my high school writing stories about a character somewhat like Mike Hammer, when I heard Mickey Spillane promoting this on the radio, I had to check it out. This was my very 1st exposure to MIKE HAMMER. What a place to come in. Once past the pre-credit sequence, when you see that shot of his NYC office and "Harlem Nocturne" washes over you, HOW can you not be hooked immediately? I was.

The funny thing is, it hit me... I'd been a fan of JOHN SHAFT for some years by then, and I suddenly realized... between the sex, violence and humor, Shaft was a "black" version of MIKE HAMMER. I just never knew it before. And that was before I found out that both Mickey Spillane and Ernest Tidyman had worked for Martin Goodman early in their careers. How about that?? In that light, "LUKE CAGE, HERO FOR HIRE" was a natural for Marvel Comics.

I had seen Stacy Keach before, when I saw "UP IN SMOKE" in a theatre with my best friend Jim. I didn't know it, but I'd also seen his Dad, when he was a regular for awhile on "GET SMART". In retrospect, I can REALLY SEE why this sold as a series. Comparing Keach to the Mike in the newspaper strip is a lot like comparing Sean Connery to the James Bond newspaper strip. The comics are true to the books, while Connery & Keach both bring something "EXTRA" to the part, to make them more compatible to "general audiences". (I've never seen anyone else make this comparison, but I first made it decades ago.) THIS Hammer is INTENSE, VIOLENT, SEXY, but also has an unrelenting sense of HUMOR. It's no damn wonder I fell in love with this film right from the word go.

When CBS ran this Saturday night at 8 PM, I knew that "Family Viewing Hour" was finally DEAD and gone.

Oddly enough, I'd never seen Tanya Roberts before this. Her Velda is smart, tough, brave, capable, loyal, and really cares for Mike. It's no wonder she made such a huge impression on me that I kept wishing she'd done the entire series. Lindsay Bloom was nice, but she never grabbed me the way Roberts did. (Without even realizing it, decades later, I based a character in a series of cartoons I did on Roberts.) She remains my 2ND-favorite Velda.

I'd seen Don Stroud in various films, usually as some kind of creepy scumball. It was so nice to see him playing a good guy for once. And they really managed to flesh him out pretty quickly here. Not only can we see he's REALLY good friends with Mike (an important element missing from too many earlier versions), but we even learn he's happily married with kids and living in the suburbs.

Kent Williams as Barrington is like this show's "Dr. Smith"-- a perpetual PAIN-IN-THE-ASS. For part of this story, you actually wondered if he might be crooked! I WORKED with a guy just like him for 3 years in the late 80s, a TOTAL F***ING A**H*** named Bill Hoffman. He was both arrogant as hell, and totally incompetent. That wasn't the real problem. The trouble started when he figured out that I KNEW that. He got paranoid, and so spent the next 3 years trying to have me FIRED, because he was afraid I'd endanger his job. What a total S***. It's decades later, but even now, if he ever walked in front my car, I'd step on the gas and then say "OOPS."

This film jumped on the "the son or daughter he never knew he had" trope that I've always believed started with "STAR TREK 2: THE WRATH OF KHAN" (although in there, Kirk knew, but the audience didn't). It also predicted the tragedy of "STAR TREK 3". Whatta ya know?

What a supporting cast! Delta Burke was such a DOLL back then! I was already a fan of Jonathan Banks (more or less) from when he played "Dutch Schultz" on "THE GANGSTER CHRONICLES". Bert Rosario also had a very amusing role on a "BUCK ROGERS" episode ("My name is Sergio Sanweiler, perhaps you've HEARD of me?"). Randy Brooks later turned up in perhaps the SEXIEST episode of this show ever done a few years later, while Michelle Phillips also turned up in a later Keach-Hammer TV movie. And I've lost count how many times I've seen Tom Adkins.

Amazing to think I've been a Hammer fan now for 39 YEARS. Next time I decide to watch this, I'm gonna spring for the DVD. My self-recorded tape is showing its age.

My one question: I know it looks really good on him, but... WHY did they let Keach keep his moustache?

[profh0011]

MIKE HAMMER: MORE THAN MURDER (1984)

A few things I forgot to mention last time. I loved the big band music, which probably inspired me to include it in some of my own stories years later. I loved that Keach drove a '64 Mustang-- the SAME car Darren McGavin drove on "THE NIGHT STALKER". And I loved how the film overwhelmed you with STYLE-- so much so that the fact that most of the plots were IMPOSSIBLE to keep track of, didn't matter, since you were having too much fun watching. The other show this had in common with that was the Maury Chaykin-Tim Hutton "NERO WOLFE".

CBS dragged their feet so much by the time they gave the go-ahead for the sequel, Tanya Roberts was off doing "SHEENA". (Does anyone remember-- or want to-- that film?) I'd seen Lindsay Bloom on a "STRIKE FORCE" back in '81. I saw an interview where she described what she went thru to get the part of Velda. She dyed her blonde hair black, she lost about 20 pounds (yes, she was EVEN MORE voluptuous before she started on the show), and she took a course in handling FIREARMS. Crazy thing, I don't remember her ever really using a gun on the show (the way Roberts had). For some unaccountable reason, it took me 3 years to remember her name. I finally did when I associated her last name with her breast size. (I know that sounds like a joke, but... nope!)

If the 1st film got just about EVERYTHING right, the 2nd one added a whole lot more that became running staples of the series. Velda trying to get Mike to quit smoking, Mike saying, "I'll make a note", "The Face", Mike tipping his hat forward to emphasize a point, and "Ozzie The Answer". I could have done without Danny Goldman. (Anybody besides me ever confuse his voice with Arnold Stang's?) Oh yeah, and what was there, about 100 GORGEOUS women in this one story-- ALMOST all of them better-looking than your average "Bond girl"?

Speaking of which, MY favorite Bond girl-- YES, REALLY-- turned up in here-- Lynn-Holly Johnson. I can't believe that, like Bond, Hammer DIDN'T get to sleep with her, EITHER. I would have!

With Mike's track record with women, I was SURE Robyn Douglass would turn out to be the villain. NOPE. What a shock. Instead it was perpetual "nice guy" Sam Groom (THE TIME TUNNEL, POLICE SURGEON, OTHERWORLD). He must have figured it was his turn for once.

I think "STRIKE FORCE" must be the only thing Richard Romanus ever did where he played a good guy, instead of his usual endless supply of criminal dirtbags. (He was also "Harry Canyon" in "HEAVY METAL"-- that was somewhere in between.)

I wonder if anyone recognized the guy running the health club was a former "Tarzan" (Denny Miller) ?

My tape of "MURDER ME MURDER YOU", recorded at the 4-hour speed, sat there for a whole YEAR waiting for the next episode. It was a pleasure, and a relief, to finally put the 3rd & 4th hours on that tape. And the following week, hour 5. (You could fit 5 TV episodes at the "LP" speed if you cut out the commercials. Well, EXCEPT for shows from the 60s... they were just a LITTLE too long for that. That's why VCR manufacturers got rid of the LP speed 20 years ago. They wanted you to BUY shows.)

I just read (on Keach's website) that Tanya Roberts once kidded him, "Do you think you're better than Sean Connery?" It was a fitting question. Keach's Hammer got WAY MORE women than Connery's Bond-- and as I said, most of them were BETTER-LOOKING. But when it got to the nasty stuff, Keach also had this INSANE MAD-DOG look in his eyes. Whoa. They never could have done this as a TV show in the 70s.

[The Australian Panther]

Some of you might be interested in this collection of the two-page text stories that Spillane did in his early days writing for comics.
Primal Spillane: Early Stories 1941-1942
https://www.boldventurepress.com/primal-spillane-early-stories-1941-1942/

Bold Venture press is also worth perusing for some of the other books and authors they have dragged out of obscurity.
There is this guy.
Larry Kent PI by Don Haring
https://www.boldventurepress.com/larry-kent-p-i/
Great Covers. 
Here we have the original Johnson McCulley Zorro books.
https://www.boldventurepress.com/tales-of-zorros-old-california-1/

And much more besides.

Cheers!

[profh0011]

"24 Carat Dead" was like old home week. How many times did Darren McGavin's Hammer find himself in stage theatres, or hanging around loads of dancing girls rehearsing? Here Keach got to do the same.

At the end of my 1st Keach videotape was the "Entertainment Tonight" piece about Lindsay Bloom. She was supposed to lose 15 pounds, but wound up losing 22! They also showed her training in both firearms and martial arts. Which was nice... except I still can't recall her ever using either in her entire run on the show.

Tracy Scoggins was in this one, as a blonde. I prefer her as a brunette.

[profh0011]

My Mike Hammer marathon continues.  Just got up to the 1st season finale, "Satan, Cyanide and Murder".  I think Mickey Spillane would have liked this. Not only was there an absurd abundance of large-breasted willing women, the villain turned out to be a spy working for the Communists.

In the midst of this was Stepfanie Kramer.  MMMM.  Where was she when they were casting for Velda?  She would have been PERFECT in the role.  I liked her better than Tanya Roberts!  Those eyes-- and what a VOICE!