The story begins with Mike Hammer on the vengeance trail when Jack, a friend, is murdered. Hammer sets out to find the killer, working his way through an increasingly large pile of suspects (and corpses).
Shortly before Christmas in New York City, one-armed insurance investigator Jack Williams (Robert Swanger) is looking at a college yearbook photo of John Hansen when someone slips into his apartment and shoots him to death. Hot-headed private investigator Mike Hammer (Biff Elliot), Jack's war buddy, vows to avenge his friend's death despite a warning from Pat Chambers (Preston Foster), captain of the homicide squad, to let the police handle the case. Pat is unable to calm Mike, who roughs up a wisecracking reporter before leaving the crime scene. Knowing that Mike will forge ahead with an investigation regardless of his advice, Pat urges the offended reporter to publish an article disclosing that Mike is on the job.
Mike goes to see Jack's fiancée, Myrna Devlin, a torch singer and reformed drug addict, but she is too distraught to talk with him. The next day, Mike's secretary Velda tells him about the article, titled "I, the Jury", which suggests that Mike knows the identity of the killer, thereby making him a target. Because Pat has given him a guest list from Jack's recent party, Mike surmises that the police captain is using him to draw out the killer.
Mike begins his investigation, first visiting wealthy fight promoter and art collector George Kalecki (Alan Reed) in upstate New York. Kalecki introduces his live-in friend, John Hansen, as college student Hal Kines (Bob Cunningham), and claims they were home together after the party. As Mike is leaving, he looks through a window and sees the men arguing. Mike next visits alluring psychoanalyst and author Charlotte Manning (Peggie Castle), who was treating both Jack and Myrna. Charlotte flirts with Mike but provides no new information.
Afterward, Mike finds Pat waiting for him. He is told that Kines moved out of Kalecki's house and that Kines believes Mike attempted to shoot him. Kines's new address is the same building where two other party guests, twin sisters Esther and Mary Bellamy, reside. Mike searches Kines's apartment and finds photos of him and Kalecki in Europe before and after World War II.
When Kines returns unexpectedly and grabs Mike's arm, the detective beats him up. He goes upstairs to see Mary, who knew Jack when he worked as a guard at her father's estate. As Mike resists Mary's attempts to seduce him, he questions her about the party and learns that Charlotte drove her, Myrna and Esther home that night after Jack and Myrna had an argument.
Later at his office, ex-boxer Killer Thompson reveals to Mike and Velda (Margaret Sheridan) that Kalecki, his former manager, runs a numbers racket. Mike seeks more information about the racket but his questions earn him only a severe beating by some thugs. Charlotte tends to his wounds and restores his spirits with a kiss, then asks if Jack might have left a message for Mike before he died.
Mike slips into Jack's apartment through a window to avoid the policeman on guard, and finds a note from Pat, who anticipated his arrival. Mike also finds Jack's diary, which includes notations about a woman named Eileen Vickers (Mary Anderson), who changed her name to Mary Wright, as well as a note that Jack had been planning to raid a dance school with the police in a few days. Mike locates Eileen's father, veterinarian R.H. Vickers, who reveals that he had asked Jack to help his daughter after she ran away from college with John Hansen. Mike finds Eileen at a dance school that is a front for prostitution. Although she is shocked to hear about Jack's death, she only knows that he wanted her to get help from Charlotte.
Despite all the information he has gathered, Mike has more questions than answers. He and Pat continue their research by looking through college yearbooks and find the photo of Hal Kines, who is identified as John Hansen. After police implement Jack's raid on the dance studio, they find Eileen's and Kines's dead bodies in Eileen's room. After Kalecki admits that he and Kines had argued over the young man's involvement with Esther, Mike is baffled as to why he was found with Eileen. Confusion continues to mount, and Charlotte and Mike are nearly killed when someone fires at them outside his office. Mike is awakened that night by Bobo (an uncredited Elisha Cook Jr.), a slow-witted former boxer now working as a department store Santa Claus, who warns Mike that "the big man" is after him. After learning that Kines has been posing as a college student for twenty years, Velda suspects that he may have been running Kalecki's numbers racket at school, using his identity as a student as a cover. Mike goes to search Kines's room at the fraternity house and discovers Kalecki inside burning Kines's papers. Kalecki shoots at Mike and is killed when Mike fires back. Mike grabs Kalecki's gun just as the police arrive to arrest him.
Angered that Mike is taking the law into his own hands, Pat waits until the next day to release him from jail. Mike then gives him Kalecki's gun and they later search Kalecki's safe-deposit box, which is filled with stolen vintage European jewelry. The detectives now realize that Jack must have been investigating Kalecki and Kines, who had been fencing stolen jewelry from Europe for years. A police analyst determines that although all four murders were committed by the same weapon, it was not Kalecki's gun. Knowing that Myrna was once a jewel thief, Pat now suspects that she may have been influenced by Kalecki to murder her fiancé.
As before, Mike confides in Charlotte, with whom he has fallen in love, and tells her he believes that Kines worked the college campuses to recruit new thieves for Kalecki. When Pat learns that Myrna is drunk in a bar, he sends Mike and Charlotte to retrieve her, and they take the drunken woman to Charlotte's apartment to sober up. After Mike leaves, however, Charlotte injects Myrna with sodium pentothal and questions her about Jack, but Myrna is too disoriented to respond. Meanwhile, Mike is beaten up by Kalecki's thugs at his office, but he turns the tables on them and they are eventually arrested; however, they reveal no new information when questioned. When Myrna is found dead in the street from a hit and run accident, the medical examiner finds the needle mark on her arm, prompting Pat to assume that she had returned to drug use. Mike then realizes that Charlotte murdered Myrna, and surmises that Charlotte found out about the jewelry racket during a hypnosis section with Kines and that she plans to take over Kalecki's business. Mike waits for Charlotte in her apartment and levels his accusations at her. Charlotte pretends to try to seduce him, but is, in fact, reaching for a hidden gun as she embraces him, forcing Mike to kill her in self-defense.
The film received mostly negative reviews at the time of its release.[4]
Film critic Dennis Schwartz gave the film a mixed review but lauded the work of John Alton, writing, "The film was lucky to have the great cinematographer John Alton cast his magic noir shots to give it at least a moody look, but because of a limited budget Alton couldn't shoot the city Christmas scene on location and had to instead just show some Christmas cards to capture the city's seasonal spirit. Alton couldn't save this dull film from the poor acting, the risible dialogue, and the lame script. Biff Elliott is the main culprit when it comes to the poor acting. He had no presence and made his macho character into an unconvincing brute, someone devoid of a personality. The actresses were all bosomy stereotypes, including Peggie Castle, Margaret Sheridan, Frances Osborne, Mary Anderson and those riotous twin sisters Tani and Dran Seitz."[5]
Related Research Articles
Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 American film noir produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez, and Wesley Addy. It also features Maxine Cooper and Cloris Leachman appearing in their feature film debuts. The film follows a private investigator in Los Angeles who becomes embroiled in a complex mystery after picking up a female hitchhiker. The screenplay was written by Aldrich and A. I. Bezzerides, based on the 1952 crime novel Kiss Me, Deadly by Mickey Spillane.
I, the Jury is the 1947 debut novel of American crime fiction writer Mickey Spillane, the first work to feature private investigator Mike Hammer.
Michael Hammer is a fictional character created by the American author Mickey Spillane. Hammer debuted in the 1947 book I, the Jury. Hammer is a no-holds-barred private investigator who carries a Colt .45 M1911A1 in a shoulder holster under his left arm. His love for his secretary Velda is outweighed only by his willingness to kill a killer. Hammer's best friend is Pat Chambers, Captain of Homicide NYPD. Hammer was a World War II army veteran who spent two years fighting jungle warfare in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II against Japan.
Wolf is a 1994 American romantic horror film directed by Mike Nichols and starring Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Kate Nelligan, Richard Jenkins, Christopher Plummer, Eileen Atkins, David Hyde Pierce, and Om Puri. It was written by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick, and an uncredited Elaine May. The music was composed by Ennio Morricone and the cinematography was done by Giuseppe Rotunno.
The Girl Hunters (1963) is a British crime drama film directed by Roy Rowland and adapted from the 1962 Mickey Spillane pulp novel of the same name. Exteriors were shot on location in New York with studio scenes in London.
I, the Jury is a 1982 American neo-noir crime thriller film based on the 1947 best-selling detective novel of the same name by Mickey Spillane. The story was previously filmed in 3D in 1953. Larry Cohen wrote the screenplay and was hired to direct, but was replaced when the film's budget was already out of control after one week of shooting. He was replaced at short notice by veteran TV director Richard T. Heffron.
Laurene Landon Coughlin is a Canadian film and television actress. She first began appearing in movies in the 1980s. She is best known for her roles in Maniac Cop and Maniac Cop 2, I, the Jury, Hundra, Airplane II: The Sequel, and ...All the Marbles.
Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All is a 1989 mystery crime thriller television film. It starred Stacy Keach, Lynda Carter, Lindsay Bloom, Don Stroud, Michelle Phillips, Lyle Alzado and the pre-stardom Jim Carrey. It was respectively filmed in Culver City, California and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Penthouse is a 1933 American Pre-Code crime film starring Warner Baxter as a lawyer and Myrna Loy as a call girl who helps him with a murder case. The film features Charles Butterworth as the butler, Mae Clarke as the murder victim, Phillips Holmes as the suspected murderer, and C. Henry Gordon as the gangster who arranged the murder. It was directed by W. S. Van Dyke and written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, based on a novel by Arthur Somers Roche. The film was later remade as the more sanitized Society Lawyer (1939), without the risqué pre-Code dialogue.
Love Crazy is a 1941 American Jack Conway screwball comedy film directed by pairing William Powell and Myrna Loy as a couple whose marriage is on the verge of being broken up by the husband's old girlfriend and the wife's disapproving mother. This was their eleventh of fourteen films appearing together. The supporting cast include Gail Patrick, Jack Carson and Sig Ruman.
Jack Stang born John A. Stang was Mickey Spillane's inspiration for the private eye character Mike Hammer in his novels.
One Lonely Night (1951) is Mickey Spillane's fourth novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer.
The Big Kill (1951) is Mickey Spillane's fifth novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer.
Kiss Me, Deadly (1952) is Mickey Spillane's sixth novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer. The novel was later loosely adapted into the film Kiss Me Deadly in 1955.
The Snake (1964) is Mickey Spillane's eighth novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer.
The Girl Hunters (1962) is Mickey Spillane's seventh novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer. It was adapted for the screen in 1963; Spillane himself played Mike Hammer.
Cult of the Cobra is a 1955 American black-and-white horror film from Universal-International Pictures, produced by Howard Pine, directed by Francis D. Lyon, that stars Faith Domergue, Richard Long, Kathleen Hughes, Marshall Thompson, Jack Kelly, William Reynolds, and David Janssen. The film was released as a double feature with Revenge of the Creature.
My Sister Eileen is a 1955 American CinemaScope comedy musical film directed by Richard Quine. It stars Janet Leigh, Betty Garrett, and Jack Lemmon.
Biff Elliot was an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as popular detective Mike Hammer in the 1953 version of I, the Jury, and for his guest appearance as Schmitter in the Star Trek episode "The Devil in the Dark".
"The Phenomenon" is the twenty ninth episode of the American television series Smash. It was written by Jordon Nardino and executive producer and showrunner Joshua Safran and directed by Roxann Dawson. The episode premiered on NBC on May 4, 2013, the fourteenth episode of season 2.
↑ 'The Top Box Office Hits of 1953', Variety, January 13, 1954
↑ Penzler, Otto (1977). The Private Lives of Private Eyes: Spies, Crime Fighters, and other Good Guys. New York City: Grosset & Dunlap. ISBN0-448-14326-7. Page 79: "The film was shot in the short-lived 3-D (three-dimensional) process."
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
