My Gun Is Quick

source: My Gun Is Quick

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.

Lead actor Bray is well-named as he simply screams his lines in people's faces. - most of it cliche tough-guy talk from 30's era comic books. Besides the miserable dialogue the story is weak, the acting wooden, the direction poor, the sets cheesy, and the music awful. Ironically, the extended freeway scenes - originally useless filler that wrecked what little dramatic tension existed - are now a treat. Remarkably uncongested, as are the beach properties, these along with the tail-finned convertibles etc. are part of a great nostalgic glimpse back.

Unfortunately, Bray's bland version of iconic Mike Hammer can't hold together an over-extended 90-minutes. I might have responded differently had the actor evinced more than one emotionless expression and ditched that perfect wardrobe right out of Gentleman's Quarterly. Then too, there's that meandering screenplay whose threads come and go-- but crucially fail to weave anything like good suspense. Now, I'm no fan of the Cold War's "a slug in the commie gut" Mickey Spillane, but the movie as a whole fails to project his particular brand of blue-collar gusto. And that's despite the many half-clad babes that parade in and out. Also, looks to me like the screenplay goes awkwardly out of its way to emphasize Hammer's principled core. That's probably to reassure 50's audiences that this is not Spillane's ethically challenged version. In that sense, the movie's a somewhat revisionist working of the decade's favorite PI. Still the movie manages a few positives, especially Jan Chaney's beautifully shaded performance as a forlorn hooker named Red. It's one of the more subtly soulful turns I've seen. Note too how that same opening scene registers Hammer immediately as a tough guy but with heart. Then there's a good traveling look at LA's notorious freeways, which must have been an early morning shoot before the system-wide jam starts. Note too,the big glimpse of 50's upscale decor. No wonder this Hammer only parades around in fine suits. And I liked that imaginative junkyard set-up that proves even recyclables can be a menace. What the movie really needs however is a strong touch of style. I'm just sorry proved stylists like those of of Kiss Me Deadly (1955) didn't have a hand in this pedestrian production. As things stand, the programmer remains an appropriately obscure entry in an otherwise durable franchise.

A private detective (Robert Blay) helps a prostitute being assaulted, and notices that she is wearing a unique ring. She is later found murdered and there is no trace of the ring, which turns out to be part of a cache of jewelry stolen by the Nazis during World War II. This is apparently what a B-movie film noir looks like. No actors whose names mean anything to me (including star Robert Blay). Made by United Artists, and then acquired by MGM. Now probably sort of in limbo from the financial mess of MGM... But you know what? Low budget or not, lack of star power or not, this is a pretty good story with a cool detective, some ladies of the night, shady characters...

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.

The Mike Hammer adventure My Gun Is Quick survives against some pretty steep odds. First, it comes from the paw of Mickey Spillane, with the problems that implies; its cast and crew are (and were) unknowns; it's all but forgotten; and what little word of mouth circulates around it tends to be dismissive. But, like the curate's egg, it's not too bad, and parts of it are pretty good. Hammer (Robert Bray), on stakeout for the last 52 hours, staggers into a diner for another cup of joe. He flirts with a young hooker, giving her bus fare back to Nebraska. When she's found dead the next morning, he takes it personally. A baroque ring she wore turns out to have come from an Italian treasure stolen during the war. Seeking to avenge her killing, Hammer, in the inflexible tradition of Los Angeles private eyes, works his way along the underbelly of the City of Angels to the missing loot and the murderers. It's not quite the same town where earlier gumshoes Dick Powell and Humphrey Bogart and Robert Montgomery plied their trade. As in the memorable Mike Hammer movie Kiss Me Deadly of two years earlier, it's the late-Eisenhower L.A. of freeways and oil derricks and strip clubs, a changing landscape where the Mexican presence can no longer be ignored. Even the wealthy live in cold, '50s-moderne showplaces of spindly blonde furniture and plate glass walls draped with sheers. But Hammer's quest is the old and familiar one of multiple murders, duplicity and femmes fatales of increasing lethality. Wisely, the movie takes Hammer 'as is.' It doesn't pull back from his easy violence, his racism ('greaseball' is a favorite epithet), and his misogyny ('Off my back, chick – I'm tired!' he bellows at his secretary Velda). But it keeps its distance and doesn't glamorize him, either (though it does grant him his primitive 'code'). The movie (shot in black and white by Harry Neumann, with over 350 titles to his credit) has an almost retro look to it, and there's a jazzy, percussive score by Marlin Skiles, another unsung veteran of countless genre programmers. The acting stays serviceable and occasionally better, but the script keeps careless track of some of the plot strands (the man from Amsterdam gets misplaced entirely). My Gun Is Quick boasts one distinctive passage: Hammer looks in from an upstairs window down at a chaotic scene crowded with police, ambulance drivers and several of the characters, as a body is wheeled away. It's filmed entirely without dialogue, the only sounds being the wind, the surf and the muted music of bongo drums.

This film has been on my 'must see' list for years and I finally got to see it recently. It is probably one of the better low budget detective yarns of the late 50s and is improved by having a producer (Victor Saville) very familiar with his material having produced two earlier Spillane/Hammer films. Robert Bray is excellent as an unshaven worn out Mike Hammer and is well supported by the rest of the cast. The script and location photography are good and the music suitably sleazy and atmospheric. What lets it down is the predictable ending, often a problem with Spillane stories - it's nearly always 'the dame that dunnit'. My favourite Hammer film is the first version of 'I, The Jury' which benefits from some superb noir imagery. This film isn't quite that good but is a serviceable and very entertaining movie.

Director and producer Victor Saville gave us THE LONG WAIT three years earlier, also inspired from a Mickey Spillane - and Mike Hammer's advanture. I don't quite rememeber this previous film, I have it in my library however, but none of both are as excellent as KISS ME DEADLY from director Bob Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker, the best Mike Hammer for me. But this very one remains a good time waster in terms of gumshoe scheme, ust the usual predictable stuff, and rather hard to get. I have already seen it several times since thirty five years and I can't remember it each time I see it...But don't miss it if it is available somewhere.

In the fine tradition of Mickey Spillane and a plethora of other PIs, Mike Hammer gets the job done. With a superlative cast of B actors and a B script, the film pulls off an entertaining hour or so of tough guy drama; where dames only get in the way. A better title might have been My Gun is Big or My Gun is Hard instead of My Gun is Quick, which in the world of sexual innuendo does not really rate that high, unless you approve of premature celebrations.