My Gun Is Quick

Finally caught this for the first time recently when it aired on TCM and was pretty impressed. Mickey Spillane was unfairly maligned for years as a low-rent, hardboiled writer, which was more snobbery than real critical appraisal. Writer Max Allan Collins (Road to Redemption) has made championing Spillane a personal cause, and it's a worthy one. While Spillane's writing may not rank with such noir masters as Hammett or Chandler, there is a raw beauty to his prose, and there are passages in his novels that are so evocative of mood and place that they leap off the page. Given his book sales, it's a mystery why Spillane's Mike Hammer stories have not received more attention from Hollywood. And while "Kiss Me Deadly" has its moments, "My Gun is Quick" is far more true to Spillane's most famous character and to his work. That is largely due to Robert Bray, who comes much closer to capturing both the physical look of the character and his moral code, which, while brutal, is firmly on the side of justice, even if he's determined to administer it himself. Hollywood missed a bet by not casting Lawrence Tierney, the obvious choice, or Charles McGraw in the role. But of all the Hammers that have appeared on the big screen, Bray is the best. This movie suffers from a low budget, which includes the choice of L. A. as its location, rather than New York City, Hammer's natural habitat. But given those limitations it is well-shot, well-directed, and despite a no-name cast, well-acted. I'm still waiting for someone to do Spillane's Mike Hammer screen justice, but until he gets a big budget treatment set in 1950s New York, "My Gun is Quick" will remain the most faithful adaption of Hammer to make it to the big screen.

I have never read any of the Mike Hammer novels so I cannot comment on how faithful the film adaptations are but I have seen all the films.

This film has a plot similar to the previous Mike Hammer film KISS ME DEADLY. As in the latter film Mike Hammer helps a girl escape from a gang of thugs, but the girl later turns up dead. Mike meets a women whom he thinks is trying to help him solve the girls murder, but like Gabrielle in KISS ME DEADLY, she is really working for the bad guys. The bad guys are lead by a retired English army officer who is trying to recover stolen Nazi loot he smuggled out of Europe after the war. Robert Bray is adequate as Mike Hammer, but he is no Ralph Meeker. But his Mike Hammer performance is light years ahead of Biff Elliot's or Armand Assante's.

Robert Bray is Mike Hammer in My Gun is Quick from 1957, directed by Victor Saville.

This was a very loud movie, in that it seemed as if everyone was shouting at the top of their lungs.

Hammer meets a young woman (Jan Chaney) whom he calls Red. She's down on her luck, so he gives her money and his phone number. She's wearing an unusual ring, which she says is worthless. Later she is found dead, and the ring is gone.

The ring was part of the Venacci jewelry collection, Nazi loot stolen after the war by a Colonel Holloway, who went to prison. The jewels have not been recovered, but several entities are after them.

The investigation into Red's murder ties into the quest for the jewels, resulting in several more murders.

During the movie, Hammer follows someone in his car. This was not a car chase. It was the most tedious thing I've ever seen. I swear it lasted twenty minutes.

Meredith Baxter's mother, Whitney Blake, who was Mrs. B on Hazel, is a main character who lives in the place once rented by Colonel Holloway.

Boring with loud performances. Like Lawrence Tierney, Bray had the detective familiar monotone.

This is a very gritty low-budget Mickey Spillane film. Yet, despite having a no-name cast and every reason to believe it would stink, the film was very good and deserves to be seen. Robert Bray (who?!) plays Hammer--and plays him directly--without being handsome or bigger than life. This Mike Hammer was very human and very believable.

The film begins with an exhausted Mike coming into a greasy spoon for a bite. There he meets a young lady who had dreams of making it big in Hollywood but who is forced to survive through prostitution. Despite this hard life, Mike feels sorry for her and after a brief talk, gives her money to take a train back home to her family in the Midwest. Later, he learns that she's dead--the supposed victim of a hit and run. Hammer knows better--and spends the rest of the film tracking down her killers. Oddly, this case turns out to be related to an old jewel robbery. How can they be connected and how can Mike avoid getting his brains beaten out....yet again.

As I said above, this film is pretty good despite the budget. The story is excellent and the entire production works well because it seems pretty realistic and tough. A very good but relatively forgotten example of film noir that's worth seeing.

Spillane's Hammer Books Sold Like Hot-Cakes in the Cold-War Making Mickey one of the Best-Selling Authors of All-Time.

A Reality-Check also makes Clear that the Author is Never on Any Best Writer Lists. Truth is that Spillane was a Blistering Commodity that Tapped a Nerve. Returning Vets (Mickey was a Marine), and Macho Types of All Stripes Loved the Noble Savagery.

But Spillane was and Never Will be Considered a "Great" Writer Despite His Highly-Impressive Numbers. Is McDonalds Considered "Great" Dining.

The One Film that had the Backing and Will to put Hammer on the Screen with a Production Worth the Popularity of the Character was "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955).

Director Robert Aldridge's Seminal Film-Noir, some Consider a Masterpiece.

This B-Movie is like all the Other Hammer Movies...Low on Everything Including Talent and a Desire to Not Risk much on the Successor to the 30's and 40's Pulp Icon's.

So the Salivating Public was Short-Changed and the Hammer Legacy on the Screen has been Relegated, mostly, to an Anemic Artistic Wasteland of Missed Opportunities and Creative Indifference.

All of the Movies in the Hey-Day Suffered and Blend Together with such a Degree of Sameness from the Actors to the Style or Lack Thereof, to the Story and the Soundtrack, that in Retrospect it's Difficult to Distinguish Among the Product Offered.