Had it not been for the Production Code I, the Jury (1953) would have been the best-ever Mickey Spillane film adaptation. It's still pretty good - Peggie Castle sizzles, John Alton’s cinematography is superb. See it.
My review: https://dfordoom-movieramblings.blogspot.com/2024/06/i-jury-1953.html
Mickey Spillane was definitely in the groove when he wrote the fifth Mike Hammer book The Big Kill in 1951. As so often it’s Hammer’s sensitive side that drives him on - it drives him even when he’s blowing away hoodlums with his .45.
My review: https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2020/03/mickey-spillanes-big-kill.html
#vintagethrillers #vintagethriller #vintagemystery #vintagemysteries #noir #noirfiction #crimefiction #hardboiledcrime hardboiledfiction #hardboiled #pulpfiction #MickeySpillane #MikeHammer
#Bales2023FilmChallenge
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August 3- Someone named Michael
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) and Velma (Maxine Cooper) attempt to run away from trouble much, much larger in scope than a man like Mike Hammer could possibly be capable of comprehending, let alone handling with his fists.
Mickey Spillane’s 1964 novel The Snake is a sequel to The Girl Hunters and you absolutely must read The Girl Hunters first. This is a very different Mike Hammer - older, wiser and sadder. Both books are great, but read the earlier books first.
My review: https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2023/06/mickey-spillanes-snake.html
Remembering #DarrenMcGavin (1922-2006), the Emmy-winning American television, stage and film actor / director, born William Lyle Richardson in Washington #OnThisDay. His screen career spanned six decades, most successfully on TV, notably the title role in Mickey Spillane's #MikeHammer (1958-59), the father in Spielberg's CBS chiller #SomethingEvil (1972), Frank Black's father in #Millennium (1997) and Arthur Dales in #TheXFiles (1998-99)...
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Tonight in 1984 — #MikeHammer debuted as a weekly series on CBS.
#StacyKeach played #MickeySpillane’s iconic private eye, first introduced in the 1947 novel "I, the Jury.”
Time To Prey, an enjoyable 1960 entry in Frank Kane’s long-running Johnny Liddell PI thriller series. A pretty girl passes a letter to Johnny and then gets murdered.
Johnny Liddell is a Mike Hammer clone, but more cold-blooded and less ethical. But Kane is just not in Spillane's league as a writer.
My review: https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2023/01/frank-kanes-time-to-prey.html
Day of the Guns, first of Mickey Spillane’s four Tiger Mann espionage thrillers written 1964-1966.
Not surprisingly the formula is not all that different from Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels. There’s plenty of sex and violence. Tiger Mann resembles Mike Hammer in that he gets personally involved in a case and the case quickly becomes a kind of one-man crusade.
Great fun.
My review: https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2017/01/mickey-spillanes-day-of-guns.html
From 1947 to 1952 Mickey Spillane wrote six hugely successful Mike Hammer PI novels. A break followed before the series resumed with The Girl Hunters in 1962.
As the novel opens Mike is lying drunk in a gutter. He’s been lying drunk in gutters for seven years since his last case went sour.
This is not typical Spillane. It's great, but read the earlier books first.
My review: https://vintagepopfictions.blogspot.com/2022/01/mickey-spillanes-girl-hunters.html
