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.
