The Mike Hammer TV Movies
                                                                                          
Mike Hammer: Come Die with Me (1994) - 3.0




Mike Hammer of the books has never really made it to the screen as he was written. Hammer is a black nihilistic ball of rage. Punching people in the mouth is a happy hobby. Shooting them a bonus. In the books he hates Commies, crooks and nearly everyone not a friend or his secretary Velda. But to those few friends, he is a loyal attack dog. Hurt them and he will tear out your internal organs. Or just execute them. The author Mickey Spillane so disliked the portrayals of his character by actors Biff Elliot, Ralph Meeker, Robert Bray in films and Darren McGavin in a TV series that in 1963 he decided to play Hammer in Girl Hunters. He is ok, but it is good that he had writing to fall back on.


Later on there was I, the Jury with Armand Assante as Hammer. An ok film, but the slick Assante is as far away from the Hammer of the written page as I am from winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Then of course, there was the TV series with Stacy Keach that lasted for a few years in the 1980s. It was a pretty conventional private eye tv show, but they basically neutered Hammer for the TV audience. I came across this TV movie on the Internet and was fully expecting Keach to come out as Hammer. But it is some actor named Rob Estes and it takes about a minute to realize he is all wrong for the part.




Too much Assante going on but without the creepy charm. It feels as if Estes has stepped out of a GQ spread. The big smile, the good cookie-cutter looks and the nice suit. And set in Miami. Hammer is New York City with rumpled off the rack suits and he only smiles after he has broken your jaw. Estes as Hammer isn't a tough guy at all, being beaten by everyone though fortunately his pretty face is never marked. Kind of like Trump's ear. Nor very smart. Every time I see a film in which the villain is hiding in the back seat of a car and the hero doesn't notice them till they put a gun to his head, I want to groan. I notice a stray candy wrapper in the back seat. A damsel (Randy Ingerman) in distress comes into his office - the girl next door type - and wants his help to find her father who went out for cigarettes fourteen years ago and never came back. Velda played by Pam Anderson is skeptical. His cop friend Pat Chambers is gender switched to Darlene Fluegel and James Hong is his friend. Of course, nothing is what it seems other than this being really terrible. Every aspect. Pretty sure the writers didn't bother to read Spillane but just made a generic PI film and called him Hammer.




Murder Me, Murder You (1983) - 6.0





Mike Hammer is mad and that is what he should be. In the books, he is always angry at something. The cops, the Commies, dames or life. This film captures some of his anger. He has reason to be. This TV movie starring Stacy Keach as the hard-boiled dick was his entry point. There were a couple more TV movies and then the series from 1984 to 1987. Then he had a hiatus before returning as Hammer in 1997 for 26 episodes. So, I expect for most people Hammer is Keach and in truth he probably came the closest of the actors who played Hammer to the character in the books. But still doesn't get there. Just not nasty, fanatic and obsessed enough. They had to make him palatable for TV audiences. Someone needs to do him right.




But this first film comes closer than I remember the TV shows doing. They may not have been thinking series and so gave it a dark brutal edge. A lot of people are killed and Hammer returns the favor. Throw in dank bars, a murderous transvestite and the porno business and Hammer is right at home. Keach is good here. They make him too much of a babe magnet with literally every woman practically throwing their underwear at him with a neon sign reading, screw me. I mean Keach is a man's man but come on. Only Va-Va-Velda is immune to his sexual magnetism. Though wearing cleavage enticing outfits doesn't strike me as what she learned in secretarial school. But played by Tanya Roberts between Beast Master and Sheena, she could take shorthand from me any time.




Hammer is hired to protect a witness. And it is a small world. A lover from 18 years ago. But then it seems most of the women in NYC were at some point. That doesn't go well as she is poisoned to death but not before telling him that her daughter is his. And she is in danger. There is also a missing briefcase with 2 million dollars in it and some nasty people are after it. A decent cast - Michelle Phillips as his old lover, Lisa Blount as the daughter, Jonathan Banks in his usual cretin mode, Tom Atkins, Don Stroud as his cop friend who was to continue in that role in the TV show and a very sexy and slim Delta Burke. Unfortunately, Tanya did not continue in the role. All that cleavage going going gone.


More Than Murder (1984) - 6.0




This is the second TV movie of the Stacy Keach/ Mike Hammer films. This one was used as the pilot for the TV series. I may have to give the series another look. I just recall it as a pretty conventional PI show, but the two TV movies that I have seen are pretty solid. This one almost crashes and burns when Hammer falls in love and says after one night, you could become a habit. Come on, that is third date material. But it has a finale that put it back in my good graces. There is also a good sock em up with Keach clearly doing his own stunts.



The screen is filled constantly with great looking women which confounds me. I lived in NYC for 30 years and I rarely saw a woman that good looking. Maybe, I needed to get out of my apartment more. A lot of them die, but that is the risk of loving Hammer. You take the good with the bad. There isn't a woman in the film that doesn't want to play humpty-dumpty with him. Even the Pastrami or me sandwich delivery girl or the one that literally scales his building to sleep with him. It has to be the mustache.



When he isn't flirting or bedding, he is trying to find out who shot his police pal Pat Chambers (Don Stroud) in the back and then framed him. It isn't easy when every time that Hammer confronts a witness and they say, I will tell you in a minute and they get murdered as he idly stands by. Velda who was played by the delicious Tanya Roberts in the first film is now being played by a shyer Lindsay Bloom. She is trying to get him to give up smoking. He would rather give up women. At least cigarettes don't get killed. You know he means business when he says, "A 45 caliber was the only currency i have". A very Spillane thing to say. In the cast are Lynn-Holly Johnson, Robyn Douglass and Richard Romanus.
The Return of Mikey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1986) - 6.0




It begins at Columbus Circle in NYC. A tourist hub of sorts just on the edge of Central Park. A mime is performing and being as annoying as mimes always are. He kidnaps a little girl and heads for Epstein Island in a getaway car. I hate mimes. They should be banned. Anyways, later at a movie shooting on Hammer's street, he spots this mime playing with a little girl. "Something about the mime bothered me. Maybe because he was too quiet." and because he is a frigging mime. Hammer in his trademark fedora stops him from kidnapping the girl. Turns out she is the daughter of the film's star played by Lauren Hutton. She is grateful. The main suspense in the film is whether Hammer would bed her. Betting had it at 3-1 that he wouldn't.



She hires him to bodyguard her girl and come to California. The betting odds went up to 7-1. He botches the job and the girl is kidnapped by a nun in sneakers. Now he has to get her back. There are links to a squad of American ex-American soldiers who were assassins. There is one incredible stunt - not I would guess performed by Keach. A fellow is hanging on to a bag hanging from a helicopter and up it goes and him with it and over a canyon and along the ground. Don Stroud and Lindsay Bloom are back and there is a great cameo by Mickey Rooney as an agent. I don't like Hammer outside of NYC. Loses some interest from me, but this is fine. Hutton does some real emoting. The third of the Hammer TV movies.  Up on YouTube with no commercial interruptions.




Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All (1989) - 5.0




A lot of people are killed in these Mike Hammer/ Stacy Keach TV movies. You barely get to know them and they are taking the big sleep. This is the fourth and final one, but what feels odd is that it wasn't shown on TV till a couple years after the TV series ended. Keach has never been an actor that I paid much attention to but he must have a hell of a good agent with over 200 credits on IMDB and right up to last year. Now he will always be Mike Hammer to me.



"I shouldn't be near Vegas and have money in my pocket.". Hammer doesn't. Only a NYC subway token when he is grabbed off the street, drugged, put on a plane and parachuted out to land on the Vegas strip. Kind of a ridiculous premise. And right as Hammer was about to get lucky with a dame in a white fur coat who walked in alone into his neighborhood dive. My radar said prostitute or uptown girl looking for a downtown thrill. Hammer filled the ticket. Fortunately for the viewer, he gets conked over the head before he spills any more lovey-dovey narration. So does the plot and dialogue.




The plot is as messy as a four day orgy in a peanut butter factory and the dialogue needed a re-write by someone not glued to noir cliches. By the end I really had no idea what happened and who killed who. I mean why bring Hammer to Vegas when Vegas has Dan Tanna already there (TV reference). Why does the amazing Linda Carter than hire him to look for an incriminating diary, why does he spend half the film walking in the desert and the other half smacking people or being smacked. All with only that token. And why does the milktoast accountant think he can become a comedian. Played by Jim Carrey while still an unknown. He tells one ok joke. Hammer is going into a ranch bordello to ask questions and tells Carrey, wait for me,  this will only take a minute. "That's how they like it".