MY GUN IS QUICK

US, 1957, 90 minutes, Black-and-white.
Robert Brady, Whitney Blake, Patricia Donahoo, Don Randolph, Pamela Duncan, Terence De Marney.
Directed by Phil Victor (Victor Saville), George White.


This is a Mickey Spillane film – but not a very good one at all. Fans of Mickey Spillane’s novels might prefer to look at Biff Elliot in the 1950s I, the Jury, or, better, Armand Assante’s incarnation of Spillane’s hero, Mike Hammer, in the remake.

Robert Bray is introduced in this film, though he had previous roles, and is a very stolid Mike Hammer, a much lesser variation of Sterling Hayden.

This is very much a B-budget film although, very surprisingly, it was directed by the celebrated British director, Victor Savile, who had made such films as Evergreen and South Riding in the UK before going to the US and making significant films and it MGM including the Green Years, Green Dolphin Street, The Miniver Story, Kim. My Gun is Quick was his final film as director under the pseudonym Phil Victor.

Mike Hammer is the archetypal tough guy private detective, not very emotional in his expressions, bottling it up inside, but its spilling out in aggression. He is hard on his secretary who is devoted to him. He encounters a prostitute in a diner and is sympathetic, buying her something to eat, urging her to go back to Nebraska, seeing the ring that she was wearing. And then she is murdered and he is determined to investigate, defying his superiors.

And, the ring is the clue. The plot concerns the robbery of jewellery during the war and an American colonel, in prison for 10 years for the theft, coming out of jail and trying to find the jewellery. And he sets up encounters with Hammer, joining forces with him to recover the cash, especially as they are hounded by a group of French criminals. Spillane is helped by another singer, a mute Frenchman who has information but is also killed.

In many ways, stock characters, stock situations – and, it is surprising that there were not more Mike Hammer films and better actors and directors working on them.