I, the Jury

The first film adaptation of a Mickey Spillane novel, filmed in 3D and starring one of the all-time nobodies, Biff Elliot, as Mike Hammer. He looks like William Bendix's younger brother and acts like Lon Chaney, Jr. in "Of Mice and Men." The selling point of any movie based on a Spillane story, aside from the violence, should be the dialogue. That's true here, with lots of tough noir one-liners. Unfortunately, many of those are bellowed by Elliot, who barges into every scene like he's mad someone made him take this job. Seriously, watch this guy stomp around. Someone hired this moose to act and this is what they got. Even the film's famous final scene is tainted by his inability to deliver a line with emotion.

On the plus side, the movie was photographed by John Alton. He makes the most of the cheap production values. Good use of the Bradbury Building, which is recognizable to fans of films like D.O.A. and Blade Runner. Nice score from Franz Waxman. The supporting cast includes many lesser known actors but there are a few old pros like Preston Foster, John Qualen, and Elisha Cook, Jr. How any of them kept a straight face while that sack of meat was barking at them is beyond me. Attractive Peggie Castle makes an unconvincing psychologist and is even less convincing as a woman attracted to Elliot.

This movie has a lot that prevents it from being great. But all of the other issues combined don't equal the sheer ineptitude of casting Biff Elliot as Mike Hammer. This was his film debut and he never did anything this big again. He worked fairly steady for decades, mostly in television. I have no idea why he was cast. Worked cheap? Saved the producer's life? Knew where the bodies were buried? I don't know. All I do know is he stinks in this.

This is such a tough-guy noir that it almost comes off as a take-off.

I, the Jury concerns Mike Hammer's search for the killer of his friend, Jack. Eventually other people who attended the same party as Jack are killed as well.

From what I gather, this was shown in 3-D some time in 2003, with the star, Biff Elliott (then 80) present. The audience loved it - mainly because all the dialogue is now considered "camp."

One thing Elliot could do was beat up people, since he had previously been a boxer. Just no dimension to the character. I would have loved to have seen someone like Ralph Meeker in this film.

Of note was the very neat opening scene, which I imagine played very well in 3-D. The last scene of the film was very effective as well.

The women in the movie were lovely - Mary Anderson does a good job as Eileen Vickers. Margaret Sheridan was a lovely Velda, and Peggie Castle was a stunning Charlotte, one of the many women in love with Mike. The other performances were okay.

As the first film Mike Hammer, one would assume it brought Elliot attention and, in other hands, could have been a star-making role. Though he continued working for years, it wasn't as a star. Sadly I think better casting would have helped "I, The Jury" immensely.

In 1953, I, The Jury became the first of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series to hit the screen, but it takes its cues from movies of 1947, when the book hit the kiosks. The yuletide cards serving as scene dividers, the violence counterpointed to Christmas carols recall The Lady in the Lake, while the duplicitous female psychiatrist reprises Helen Walker's Dr. Lilith Ritter in Nightmare Alley (the final, fatal tryst comes from the even earlier Double Indemnity).

These echoes may have been attempts to invest Hammer with some respectability, linking him to the more subtle and textured characters of the 1940s. It's clear something had to be done with him, because Spillane went for raw sensation in a way that caused a sensation of its own. His private eye is uncouth, short-fused and randy but misogynist, bowing to no authority save his own (hence the title). Spillane luckily or shrewdly had as readers of his punch-drunk prose men who had survived overseas combat and were making up for lost time in the footloose, post-war prosperity; he gave them not just sex and violence but sex-and-violence.

So in one sense, Biff Elliott makes an ideal Hammer, closer to Spillane's lout than his (relatively) spruced-up successors Ralph Meeker and Robert Bray (plus Armand Assante, in the marginally better 1982 remake of this title). He comes across as a Dead End kid grown up with a license and a gun, slow-witted but fast with his fists and his trigger.

When his best friend, an insurance investigator and combat amputee, gets himself coldly killed, Hammer scours New York to avenge him. The urban locales bring out the talents of director of photography John Alton, who here tried his hand at the 3-D process (thus I, The Jury, along with Man in the Dark, The Glass Web and Second Chance, becomes one of the few noirs so filmed).

The shoot-from-the-hip action, however, rides roughshod over any intricacies of the plot. Characters Hammer encounters stay generic, with the exception of Peggie Castle as the shrink. The film's last scene is hers, not Elliott's, as she moves into a languorous striptease that comes to a quick finale. For better or worse, it's an emblematic image that showcases Spillane's coarsened sensibility, his fusion of brutality and eroticism, and spells an end to the more freighted ambiguity that was a hallmark of the noir cycle.

A gun fires through a half-opened door. A one-arm dying man crawls towards the camera while the chair where his prosthetic arm lies moves back unabling him to reach it. In the next scene a man climbs up the stairs to find his army pal shot dead. This is the first Mike Hammer film in 3D and must be seen in 3D to really appreciate its quality. Fortunately there is an exceptionally well restored 3D version that makes of this film a rare noir gem. John Alton photography is breathtaking, especially in the zenithal shots - view from the top of the Bradbury Building (that has appeared in many other films such as D. O. A.) is simply stunning in 3D - and use of shadows. Light contrasts are superb. Although Alton won an oscar for An American in Paris his photography work for black and white movies is powerfully shocking.

No "tricks" here like a fire torch splashed into the camera eye. Any 3D detractor should watch this movie. Not the usual 3D method of emphasizing certain elements and relegating others was employed but all of them are in relief instead. The opening scene with the firing gun is maybe the only license to that use. The result it is an exciting watching experience that brings the whole set to life by highlighting every single element. 3D experience upgraded.

As for the cast, Biff Elliot plays decently although wooden a tough, rude and violent Mike Hammer, boxer- type (he had been a boxer himself in his youth). Peggie Castle plays a psychoanalyst and does an excellent femme fatale, Preston Foster has a small but solid role as a police captain and Margaret Sheridan is the ever- efficient Hammer secretary (Perry Mason's Della Street type). Role of the dead man was played by real life single -handed Robert Swanger in his only screen appearance.

Based on Mickey Spillane's book I, the jury some facts were changed - cocaine traffic to jewelry smuggling, twin sisters' nymphomania and Hammer's final shot from spontaneous to in response to be almost killed.

Special mention for the 3D-inside-3D view-master type shot surprise gem. This scene only makes the movie worth watching in 3D only and an enjoyable experience for any 3D and view master fan. Do not miss it.

Quite a surprise, this one, based on the Mickey Spillane book, done very much in the film noir style and shot in 3-D! Actually watching this flat it is only the opening with the dying man crawling towards the camera with his hand reaching forward that I was aware of the 3-D origins and we are swiftly on to an absorbing thriller. Not as tough and sexy as the book but a really decent effort with some super shadowy location filming. Biff Elliot, of whom I had never heard, is fine in the lead, if not sensational but the crackling dialogue and constant action keep things moving along nicely while Peggie Castle is great as the femme fatale. Low budget and maybe nothing too special but tight and bold. Very likable.