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Post by stuyoung on Jul 12, 2011 10:22:32 GMT
I'm currently reading Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels. Read I, the Jury and My Gun is Quick and have just started Vengeance Is Mine! I'm enjoying them but at the same time they're not as good as I'd hoped. The dialogue's lacking in wisecracks, the characterisation's pretty thin and the prose varies between fairly bland and actually quite good. Also, given Spillane's and Mike Hammer's reputations the books are surprisingly tame, almost quaint. In a lot of ways Hammer's a big softy, forever championing the underdog and falling in love at the drop of a hat. Of course he's not entirely loveable, he's quite happy to cheat on his current girlfriend and will make the occasional racist or homophobic remark, but he doesn't come across as the right-wing nutjob that he's usually painted as. I don't know if he gets tougher in the later books or if I'm just desensitised through reading James Ellroy and the like.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 12, 2011 17:20:41 GMT
I'm currently reading Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels. Read I, the Jury and My Gun is Quick and have just started Vengeance Is Mine! I'm enjoying them but at the same time they're not as good as I'd hoped. Mike Hammer hasn´t aged well. Spillane in his best rightwing foaming is One Lonely Night which is famous for its melodramatic if atmospheric opening. And there is a very over the top scene where Mike is describing a communist rally on Union Square. "But they all had something in common. The same thing you find in a slaughterhouse. The lumpf of vomit in the center of each crowd was a Judas sheep trying to lead the rest to the ax. [...] They were a seedy bunch in shapeless clothes, heavy with the smell of the rot they had asked for and gotten." But the real commie-smasher is Tiger Mann. Which is a agent of a private group of citizens which hunts evil commie-agents while the authorities closes their eyes.
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Post by stuyoung on Jul 13, 2011 7:15:26 GMT
One Lonely Night is next on my list. I'm working my way through the Alllison & Busby Mike Hammer Omnibus and OLN is the first novel in Vol 2. I've already read the first chapter though as I'd been told that it was the best thing Spillane wrote and at the time I didn't have the chance to read any of his novels in full.
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Post by stuyoung on Jul 22, 2011 18:30:10 GMT
Just looked at my shelves and I've got one of the Tiger Mann novels. Also got The Long Wait and Return of the Hood. Although to be honest I'm not sure if I'll ever get round to reading any of them. I've got so many other books to read that I suspect I'm just going to stick with the Mike Hammers as far as Spillane's concerned.
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Post by stuyoung on Aug 16, 2011 18:37:14 GMT
Just finished One Lonely Night. Blimey, that was a fair bit nastier than the previous novels. This is the Mike Hammer that I'd heard about.
The anti-Communist propaganda is about as subtle as an H-bomb, the plot is pretty forgettable, Pat Chambers still implausibly lets Hammer get away with murder (literally) and Hammer's fears that he may be turning into a psychotic nutjob are painted in strokes so broad I'm surprised they could fit on the page. On the plus side when things kick in they really kick in, with the lines between sex and violence blurring as things get more sadistic in both departments. Hammer talked about enjoying killing in the previous novels but this time round he not only takes real pleasure in it but gets more creative in his methods of execution. And his Madonna/whore complex goes into overdrive as he shags anything with a pulse despite refusing to sleep with his loyal secretary Velda until they get married (whenever that will be).
The book somehow manages to be exciting, tedious, sexist, chivalrous, clever, stupid, off-putting and unputdownable all at the same time.
Probably going to take a break from Spillane for a while, then it's on to The Big Kill.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Aug 17, 2011 7:00:49 GMT
Aldrich's film Kiss Me, Deadly famously presents Hammer as less than admirable, but the earlier film of I, the Jury seems to me to make him a lunkhead. It's the only film I've ever seen where the audience is shown the identity of the lead villain (if we hadn't guessed) and then has to wait for several scenes while the private eye figures it out.
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Post by stuyoung on Aug 17, 2011 7:22:21 GMT
Saw Kiss Me Deadly a couple of years back and did come away thinking, "So hang on, Mike Hammer's the hero?' Not seen I, the Jury. Kind of curious to see The Girl Hunters purely because Spillane actually stars as Mike Hammer. www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,874764,00.html
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Post by andydecker on Aug 17, 2011 10:09:46 GMT
Which version? If you want to see mindless ultraviolence and lots of naked woman I´d recommend the one with Armand Assante. An early 80s release with a truly terrible screenplay, but it was a lot of fun. Basically this was like a Shannon Tweed crime movie. only with a Hollywood Budget. Seems this isn´t avaiable as a Dvd which is a shame.
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Post by stuyoung on Aug 17, 2011 11:18:47 GMT
Not seen any version of I, the Jury. Although I was responding specifically to Ramsey's comment about the the '53 version.
>>If you want to see mindless ultraviolence and lots of naked woman I´d recommend the one with Armand Assante.
Do I sound like the sort of person who'd want to see mindless ultraviolence and lots of naked women? I do? Oh. Fair enough.
I haven't seen any of the Hammer films apart from Kiss Me Deadly. But I do have vague memories of Stacey Keach playing Hammer on TV when I was a kid.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Aug 17, 2011 12:54:22 GMT
Which version? If you want to see mindless ultraviolence and lots of naked woman I´d recommend the one with Armand Assante. An early 80s release with a truly terrible screenplay, but it was a lot of fun. Basically this was like a Shannon Tweed crime movie. only with a Hollywood Budget. Seems this isn´t avaiable as a Dvd which is a shame. I meant the 1953 film (with an uncredited Elisha Cook Jr), which isn't available either! The later one was cut by about four minutes by the BBFC as I recall. The Girl Hunters used to be on DVD but is deleted, I think.
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Post by andydecker on Aug 17, 2011 19:44:43 GMT
But I do have vague memories of Stacey Keach playing Hammer on TV when I was a kid. Yes, I remember this one too. It was a network series, so it pulled its punches. Lots of gunplay and fisticuffs where nobody ever got hurt. Keach was a good Hammer, but the series descended into self-parody fast. I meant the 1953 film (with an uncredited Elisha Cook Jr), which isn't available either! The later one was cut by about four minutes by the BBFC as I recall. The Girl Hunters used to be on DVD but is deleted, I think. I have a vague recollection of The Girl Hunters. I seem to remember that Spillane wasn´t so bad as Mike Hammer. Lol, no wonder it was cut. It was a lot like movies as Commando or Cobra. But Assante brought a nice energy to the role.
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Post by stuyoung on Aug 18, 2011 13:57:27 GMT
I always wondered with the Keach version of Mike Hammer whether Hammer felt like an idiot because he was the only one dressing like it was still the 1950s.
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Post by Dr Strange on Aug 18, 2011 15:05:28 GMT
I was a huge Stacy Keach fan (probably still am, but I haven't seen him around much recently - but he played the sheriff in Honeydripper a few years back). I remember seeing him in William Peter Blatty's Ninth Configuration on TV years ago, I've never seen it again but it was quite an experience. Apparently he was also first choice for Father Karras in The Exorcist but turned it down.
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Post by stuyoung on Aug 18, 2011 17:13:29 GMT
Keach was in a Hallmark TV movie the other day called The Nanny Express. He played a kindly old priest called Father McGuiness. Not quite the same as Father Karras but it'll have to do.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Aug 19, 2011 10:43:17 GMT
I read I, The Jury and Kiss Me Deadly as a result of seeing the films. As Stu points out not quite as lurid as one might expect. My first Hammer experience was a good ol' MAD magazine parody, taking a pseudo-Spillane story and juxtaposing it with images that didn't quite fit the words. Kiss Me Deadly (the film) is a corker - shame Rog isn't still around, he loved it. I used to have an ex-rental video of the Assante I, The Jury in one of the big padded boxes. Wouldn't mind seeing it again, it was fun. I see Larry Cohen wrote the screenplay and almost directed it, getting fired after week one. Barbara Carrera's in it too! Right in it. Just caught her in the '77 Island Of Dr Moreau. What a woman!
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