Post by Dave in TorontoPost by Agent SmithI was so impressed by "Kiss Me Deadly" that I'm looking for another,
four star, Mike Hammer film. Does anybody have any good suggestions?
Personally I don't think Mike Hammer came off too well in feature
movies. I didn't even care for "Kiss Me Deadly" too much, although
it's got a cult status. Too pretentious and that annoying va-va-voom
guy drove me crazy - an interesting novelty is the British made "The
Girl Hunters" with Mickey Spillane himself playing Mike Hammer (not to
badly).
Stacy Keach caught the character best in his TV series.
Stacy Keach seems a little old to play Hammer in '97, but I might be
able to get past that. Given the character's nature, a tv series might
be the best venue for him, since that's the formula writing of the
screen genre. As an entry level pulp collector, I don't consider it an
insult to call Mike Hammer formula writing.
My IMDB search for Mickey Spillane turned up the list of films I wanted,
and of course, it looks like "I, The Jury" will be the next for me. And
now I get to feel stupid for posting the same question twice, because
somebody just recommended that exact movie to me, about a month ago.
Oooooo..... ;-P
As to "Kiss Me Deadly," it was the recent emergence of Lita Ford's punk
rock tune that put me onto the title, and I had no idea that it had
anything to do with Mike Hammer or Mickey Spillane. That's kismet,
isn't it?
What I liked about it was the way the stakes suddenly rose at the end of
the story to a dramatic climax. For 75% of the film, it was just an
ordinary noir detective procedural of Hammer following the trail of
clues from colorful character to another. And then all of a sudden it
was about the a-bomb, and it had this thunderous climax of 50's atomic
paranoia. That's how Starlin used to write in the 70's, and I die for
that style. The only thing missing was a commie agent.
Part of me found the mixing of genres to be jarring, but another part of
me was thrilled to see an above average treatment of the topic. Most of
them are so preposterous, and I was underwhelmed by the Chairman of the
Board and his pedestrian performance in the original "Manchurian
Candidate."
Ever since I read "Danse Macabre," I've been fascinated by 50's atomic
paranoia. Born in '60 to an anti-Vietnam family, I had no direct
exposure to that entire social epoch, so I must find out vicariously
what turbulent American society was like. There's a lot about American
50's culture that fascinates me.
I like classic 50's SF too, so that's also a sweet x-over for me. Have
you ever read any of the old EC comics of that generation?
As I once mentioned, as a bad writer, I am fascinated by the particular
representation of the Maguffin as a shining light in a box. It's
becomes almost a mystical construct, like something from Zen mythology,
if there is such a thing. I'll bet even the Greeks didn't have anything
like it, and they supposedly pinned down all seven of the different
stories that are possible to tell.
And then there's Repo Man. If Hitchcock could have foreseen where
modern science would take his Maguffin, I'm sure he'd be smiling in his
grave. That is not a statement I make lightly. ;-) ;-O