BY JOHN
M. WHALEN
In “My Gun Is Quick†(1957), Mickey Spillane’s famous private
detective Mike Hammer (Robert Bray) meets a sad young hooker named “Redâ€
(Patricia Donahue) in a greasy spoon and rescues her from a goon trying to put
the muscle on her. Hammer slaps him around and kicks him out the door and gives
her bus fare plus change to go back home and start over. He’s a hardnose but he’s got a tender spot
somewhere under that tough exterior. He writes down his name and number on a
slip of paper and tell her to call him to let him know she made it okay. Before
they part he notices a very ornate ring on the third finger of her right hand. Hammer
has been up for 52 hours and just wants to go home and get some sleep, but
police detective Pat Chambers’ (Booth Colman) sends a patrolman to bring him
downtown. The sad young hooker was found dead—broken neck from a hit and run
“accidentâ€â€”with Hammer’s name in her purse.
Hammer explodes in anger. “She was a nice kid,†he tells
Chambers, who pours out the contents of the girl’s purse on his desk. “Where’s
the ring?†Hammer asks. He describes it to Chambers, the silver letter “V†in a
black antique setting. Chambers pulls a file out of a drawer and shows him
pictures of some jewelry. “It’s the Venacci Collection,†Chambers says. The
jewelry was stolen in Italy during the war by a Colonel Holloway, who was
caught and served 10 years in prison. The jewels were never found, but Holloway
was just released. Hammer says he doesn’t give a damn about the jewels, he just
wants to find the girl’s killer. He goes back to the diner and slaps around the
ex-con who works behind the counter until he coughs up a lead on the girl. He
tells Mike to check out the Blue Bell Strip Club and ask for Maria (Gina Core),
one of the dancers there. She and Red were pals.
What follows next is a very long stretch of film showing
Hammer tailing a goon from LA to Long Beach. You might find such a sequence
kind of dull, despite the jazzy music on the soundtrack. But I found it
fascinating. Seeing the freeway as it was in 1957, with that Fairlane 500
cruising down the highway with the oil derricks on the left side of the road
and the beach rolling in on the right. Seeing the cars moving so freely, with
lots of space for everybody, the houses along the way with plenty of room
between them, well, it was fascinating. It gave me a nostalgic feeling, a
memory of a time when the air was still clean and there weren’t any killer
viruses taking people out by the thousands. I almost hoped the ride wouldn’t
end. But it does end- albeit, not before Hammer gets involved with another
sensuous dame, Nancy Williams (Whitney Blake) and some exotic heavies. I won’t
reveal any more of the plot. It doesn’t matter anyway. Plots are not what
private eye stories are all about. They’re about the confrontations between one
incorruptible man and a world of complicity.
The
actors do a fairly good job in their roles. Bray fills up the scenery adequately
with his size and broad shoulders, although there isn’t much fire in his
performance. Mike Hammer in the novels is a primal force. He galvanizes the
books with his anger and hatred for punks, rats, and commies. Bray and Whitney
Blake (best remembered for playing the Mom on the “Hazel†TV series), just seem
to coast through the film on roller skates. Still there’s enough tension in the
plot to hold your interest and co-directors Victor Saville as Phil Victor) and George White
make good use of the LA locales. Harry Newman’s noir photography makes the
movie visually interesting, especially the climax filmed at night on the docks
at Long Beach.
Kino Lorber has done a nice job transferring “My Gun Is
Quick†to Blu-ray in a brand new 2K transfer with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
Picture and mono sound are excellent. One of the surprising treats is checking
out the jazz background score provided by Marlin Skiles, which features a combo
of unnamed west coast players. They do a little tune called “The Blue Bells,â€
which is played during Gina Core’s strip number and reprised in several other
scenes. It’s a dumb little tune, but once you hear it, you can’t get it out of
your head. Kino has included the trailer for “My Gun Is Quick†on the disc. It
shows a six-foot model of the paperback version of the book that opens, then
has Whitney, Gina, and a couple of the other good-looking babes from the movie come
crashing out through the pages. There are a half-dozen trailers for other crime
films in KL’s vaults as well.
To sum it up “My Gun Is Quick†is not the best Mike
Hammer film ever made (that would obviously be Robert Aldrich’s “Kiss Me
Deadlyâ€) but it’s cool watching Hammer driving that Fairlane on the mean
streets of LA. Recommended.
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John M. Whalen is the author of "Tragon of Ramura". Click here to order from Amazon.