Saturday, October 30, 2010

Mickey Spillane, Movie Star

From my hometown paper, October 6, 1954.

5 comments:

David Cranmer said...

I've always wanted to watch his turn as Mike Hammer.

Max Allan Collins said...

Mickey is very good in RING OF FEAR (available on DVD in beautiful widescreen color). He is under-directed, though, and comes up with various pieces of business (chewing straw, eating ice cream), to get through a scene.

It will come as no surprise to anybody that I think Mickey is terrific in THE GIRL HUNTERS. He received great reviews, better than he'd ever got as a writer. Just imagine -- he's essentially an amateur, and he has to carry every scene he's in...and he's in virtually every scene. It's an amazing job, and he's very charismatic and believable as Hammer.

Obviously, this ability is why he was chosen to play himself in 18 years (that's right -- 18 years) of Miller Lite commericals.

THE GIRL HUNTERS airs fairly frequently on Turner. There's a DVD but it's out of print and pricey. Beware the Australian DVD because it's full screen pan-and-scan...and the censored British version.

Unknown said...

I think he's great in THE GIRL HUNTERS, too. I seem to remember that he even got a pretty good review for that one in TIME. But that was long ago, and my memory is hazy.

Ed Gorman said...

Cool movie. I remember seeing it and loving it. I may even have seen it twice because I often went to the on of the second run places where you got two big movies and a few cartoons for twenty five cents.

Randy Johnson said...

I caught the movie somewhere, most likely television, and thought it was great. I believe, remembering, that I saw it before I actually read the novel.