Here is an unusual approach to a movie. The subject, Mike Hammer, is an All-American creation; a big city, hard-nosed private detective. Yet this film is made by British hands and features many British actors playing American (or in several cases, Americans who were living in England at the time.) Then there's the matter of the casting of the lead role. Instead of casting an experienced, name brand actor, the role was given to the creator of the character, author Spillane! All of this doesn't mean that the film isn't any good (though it isn't distinctly great either), but it's certainly unusual. Spillane plays the famed gumshoe who's been mourning the death of his devoted secretary by wallowing in booze. Old comrade (and Police Captain) Peters hauls him in to help question a shooting victim who says he'll only speak to Spillane. After some rough and tumble convincing, Spillane chats with the dying man only to find out that the beloved secretary may be alive after all these years! Spillane recovers from acute alcoholism with nary a headache and sets out to uncover the mystery of the missing lady. Along the way, he comes into contact with newspaper columnist Gardner (continuing the verisimilitudinous trend, he was one in real life as well), FBI agent Nolan, bar owner Farrell and curvy, bleach-blonde widow Eaton. Finally, he must engage in a knock-down, drag-out fight with an assassin and then face down the mastermind behind the whole convoluted plot. The film has decent, crisp, black and white photography and an emphatic (often overly-emphatic) musical score. It also has endless, meandering shots of Spillane walking, walking, walking to and fro up the streets of the city and driving, driving, driving in and out of the city. If all this was cut, the film would instantly take on a tighter, more effective pace. Spillane lacks the skill and charisma to truly tackle a leading role like this (it's also sometimes hard to swallow him as a chick magnet!) However, what he lacks in acting talent, he more than makes up for in authenticity and understanding of the character. He's like a less-effective Aldo Ray, but he does excel in the fight scenes and in some of the big mouthed repartee sequences. Eaton is deliciously sexy, though she struggles noticeably with an attempted American accent. She has a designer credited with her gowns, but she's seen most often in an array of skimpy (especially for the time) bikinis! (What's with her compulsion to swim 24/7 anyway?) Peters isn't bad, if a bit one note, and Nolan is very solid, as usual, as the worldly and weary agent. The film is stark and brutal, never more so than when Spillane has to take on the threatening and rather hard-to-pin-down (so to speak) assassin. It's more of a curio than a meaningful film (and it's predictable in it's outcome), but remains watchable anyway. The biggest disappointment of it is not so much it's amateurish lead actor but the fact that it doesn't even bother to properly resolve it's most key plot point! (It's no treat watching Spillane gnash Eaton during the love scene either!)
Review of The Girl Hunters
