Margin for Murder

Kevin Dobson is Mike Hammer in this version of "I, the Jury" by Mickey Spillane - this one called "Margin for Murder," directed by Daniel Haller in 1981. It also stars Cindy Pickett, Donna Dixon, Charles Hallahan, Asher Brauner and John Considine. When a friend of Mike's is murdered in what appears to be a car accident, Mike refuses to accept it and sets out to prove a) it was murder; b) whodunit, and c) why. Nothing will keep him from the case, including the murders of two people who knew too much.

Many actors have played Mike Hammer. I for one was not enthusiastic about Stacy Keach's Hammer, but I loved Ralph Meeker's. Mickey Spillane as an actor just didn't make it. Dobson has the New York sensibility and the toughness that it takes to make a good Mike, and while he's not as sexy as Meeker, his performance works just fine in this story. Velda is played by Cindy Pickett in a very straightforward, un-bimbo-like manner. There's a nice little subplot involving some puppies marked for the pound that Mike takes to Velda's so they can find homes for them.

All in all, a pretty good TV movie. Unfortunately, the version I saw on Fox Movie Channel obviously had a scene missing. I have absolutely no understanding of this - I can understand a cut on a normal station where they have less time now for a movie than they had in 1981 because of commercials, but FMC has no commercials. Seems rather ridiculous.

Calvin Clements, Jr. was nominated in 1981 for an Edgar as author of the teleplay for this entertaining film featuring Kevin Dobson as Mike Hammer, hardened New York private investigator created by Mickey Spillane, loosely based upon Spillane's first novel: "I, The Jury", (the movie being a pilot for a television series that did not happen) and including characters who recur in the Hammer series, such as his Girl Friday, Velda (Cindy Pickett) and N.Y.P.D. Detective Captain Pat Chambers (Charles Hallahan). The obsessive zeal with which Hammer attempts to discover whomever is responsible for the murder of his best friend is earnestly depicted by Dobson as his character balks at taking a recess from a search that leads to confrontations with the Police Department and organized crime, resulting in his exposure of political corruption, all the while wooing various highly attractive and readily consenting women. Director of Photography Michael Margulies is responsible for the atmospheric footage of the mean streets in New York City, a fitting background for Hammer's mission of vengeance, and Asher Brauner, as a connected thug and John Considine as attorney for mob bigwigs give pleasing performances as do Dobson and Pickett, but the scenario is predictable with Hammer irresistible and invincible in turn and Nelson Riddle's scoring is one of his least inventive, these the primary drawbacks in a film that nonetheless generates very few tedious segments.