I, the Jury
Director: Harry Essex
Year: 1953
Rating: 7.5
Christmas is in the air and Santa needs a good
punch in that fat gut of his and Mike Hammer is the man to do it. Hammer
likes to hit people. Pretty much anyone. His eggs arrive cold; punch the
waiter, I said no starch; punch the laundry man. Twenty years of anger management
sessions would not begin to chip away at his block of fury. He is fueled
by anger. It keeps him going between cups of coffee. But he does have a soft
touch for dead friends and broken women done wrong. He lives in a jungle
of revenge, rat bastard Commies, come on prostitutes, smoky pool halls, cockroach
criminals and general scum. He was Travis Bickle before De Niro was wearing
long pants. The only good thing in his life is Velda. Sweet Velda, pure of
heart in a stink hole of humanity.
I, the Jury was Mickey Spillane's first book written in 1947. Before that
he did funnies in the comic books. Seriously. One of his comic book characters
was Mike Danger and when he needed some cold hard cash he knocked out the
book in the time it takes to kill an innocent man. The publisher thought
it was trash but that it might sell. It did Eight million times. Spillane
only wrote 13 Hammer books and they have sold over 200 million copies so
far. I have tried reading a few of his books and never finished one. The
writing is rough, simplistic and brutal. No poetry. After reading the likes
of Chandler and Hammett it is like going from Mozart to Hocum Blues music.
But a lot of people like the dirty blues. I am trying again now with My Gun
is Quick and so far so good - he buys a street walker a cup of java and when
she dies he has to look into it and starts hitting people to get answers.
I, the Jury was the first book of Spillane's to be filmed. It was produced
by a very low budget studio called Parkland run by Victor Saville. They would
go on to also make The Long Wait (1954) - not a Hammer film; Kiss Me Deadly
(1955) which was and My Gun is Quick (1957). Kiss Me Deadly is considered
a classic - directed by Robert Aldrich. He didn't really want to because
he and the writer thought Spillane was a blot on good writing - but they
re-wrote all the dialogue, changed a number of plot points and switched the
MacGuffin from drugs to an atomic bomb. Drugs were verboten by the film code
but not atomic bombs.
This film is surprisingly pretty decent - surprising because there is not
enough budget here to build a tree house and the actor who plays Hammer -
get this - Biff Elliot - doesn't have a lot of nuance - but that is sort
of the point - Hammer has no nuance - he just keeps charging forward no matter
how often he is beat up or has to beat up. He spits out sentences like we
do bad food. The cinematography is very noir - probably driven again by no
money - and the dames are hot and heavy and they all smear themselves on
Hammer like a bee on honey. There is Velda (Margaret Sheridan) of course,
two nympho twins (Tani and Dran Seitz) and a female psychiatrist who meets
her customers in a negligee. She is played by Peggy Castle who scorches the
screen at times. She shows up in a few other low budget crime films like
Finger Man, 99 River Street and The Long Wait plus Invasion U.S.A - the 1952
version. She died young at 45 from alcoholism. Throw Elisha Cook Jr into
this as well.
A few other Spillane books that made it to the screen were Girl Hunters in
1963 (in which Spillane who was so disgusted in how Hammer had been portrayed
thus far took on the role himself to so so results), Delta Factor in 1970
but not a Mike Hammer film and then in 1982 they re-did I, The Jury with
Armand Assante who is about as far from Hammer as you can go in a very fast
convertible. Where Mike Hammer has found the most success was in two TV series
- Darren McGavin as Hammer from 1958-1960 and Stacy Keach from 1984 to 1987.
Both are watered down Hammer's though the McGavin shows are 30-minute NYC
enjoyments. In the Keach series it feels like Hammer should be working for
the Red Cross he is such a good guy.
This was initially shot in 3-D which would be interesting to see.
