 First edition | |
| Author | Mickey Spillane |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Mike Hammer |
Release number | 4 |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Set in | Manhattan |
| Publisher | E. P. Dutton |
Publication date | August 1951 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Preceded by | Vengeance Is Mine |
| Followed by | The Big Kill |
One Lonely Night (1951) is Mickey Spillane's fourth novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer.
After having been berated by a little judge because of killing somebody who needed knocking off bad, licensed investigator Mike Hammer [1] goes for a walk to contemplate this humiliation on a rainy night in Manhattan and comes across a terrified woman and her pursuer on a bridge. Mike kills the man but the woman, terrified, jumps to her death from the bridge. Both the man and the woman possessed oddly shaped green cards with the edges cut off at odd angles. [2] Hammer's friend in the police department, Captain of Homicide [3] Pat Chambers, identifies them as membership cards [4] for the local Communist Party. Mike attends a meeting and is mistaken for a Soviet MGB spy.
Next day, Chambers tells Hammer that Lee Deamer, a political candidate running on an anti-corruption ticket has an insane twin brother named Oscar who is causing problems and asks Hammer to investigate; but when Hammer goes to Oscar's address, Oscar runs off and throws himself in front of a train, leaving his body unrecognisable.
Lee Deamer tells Hammer that Oscar was trying to blackmail him with documents, now missing, and asks Hammer to recover the documents. Hammer, hindered by the Communists, eventually works out where the stolen papers are and retrieves them.
The Communists kidnap Hammer's secretary, Velda, and try to bargain, her life for the papers. Hammer assaults their hideout, kills them all and rescues Velda.
Finally, Hammer figures out who is the mastermind behind the Soviet plot. He meets with the chief communist, and kills him. [5]
This novel illustrates the cardinal features of the subgenre known as hard-boiled crime fiction. The protagonist, Mike Hammer, feels alienated from mainstream society whose values, he feels, are no match for the evil that he must deal with. In the book's opening scene, Hammer walks on a rainy night and reviews the ways in which mainstream society labels him a killer, and he questions whether there is some truth to a judge's denunciation of his actions. He wonders if he is like the evil people he fights.
In hard-boiled crime fiction, commonly the cynical detective narrates in first-person his attempts to deal with a criminal element that the police are ill-equipped to handle, often because the legal system is not up to the task.
The trial Hammer attends is the real life Foley Square trial, where members of the Communist Party USA were convicted of infringing the Smith Act. Deamer may be a heavily fictionalised version of Henry A. Wallace. [5] But his strong anti-communist stance, as opposed to the conciliatory approach Wallace championed, suggests that Joseph McCarthy may have been a model.
Critics referred to the book as being "angrily anti-communist" and "extremely anti-communist." More recently, some[ who? ] have pointed out that what makes the novel different from other anti-communist literature of the time are both that the communists are portrayed as being "essentially stupid" while also being "extremely threatening," and the theme of the communists overestimating themselves is constant. The novel makes the case, without explicitly saying so, that "the Soviets were stupid and weak, and the seductive power of Communism could easily be exposed as fraudulent." Other more recent reviews point out that the novel is ahead of its time in that it is genuinely anti-racist long before this was fashionable. [6]
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.
Max Allan Collins is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his Road to Perdition series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the Dick Tracy newspaper strip for many years and has produced numerous novels featuring the character as well.
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 whose love for his secretary Velda is outweighed only by his willingness to kill a killer. Hammer's best friend is Pat Chambers, Captain of NYPD Homicide. 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.
Frank Morrison Spillane, better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, called the "king of pulp fiction". His stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. Spillane was also an occasional actor, once even playing Hammer himself in the 1965 film The Girl Hunters.
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.
I, the Jury is a 1953 American film noir crime film based on the 1947 novel I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane. It was directed by Harry Essex, produced by Victor Saville's company, Parklane Pictures and released through United Artists.
Jack Stang born John A. Stang was Mickey Spillane's inspiration for the private eye character Mike Hammer in his novels.
Vengeance Is Mine (1950) is Mickey Spillane's third 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 Body Lovers (1967) is Mickey Spillane's tenth book featuring private investigator Mike Hammer.
The Killing Man (1989) is Mickey Spillane's twelfth novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer.
Black Alley (1996) is Mickey Spillane's 13th novel featuring tougher-than-thou New York City private investigator Mike Hammer, and the last one he completed before his death in July 2006. Following the author's demise, the first of "five substantial Mike Hammer manuscripts," The Goliath Bone, was completed by his friend and colleague Max Allan Collins and published in 2008. Additional books based on Spillane's unfinished manuscripts have since been released, including Lady, Go Die! (2012), Complex 90 (2013) and King of the Weeds (2014). King of the Weeds is a direct sequel to Black Alley.
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.
The Goliath Bone is the 14th entry in the Mike Hammer series by Mickey Spillane. It was completed by Max Allan Collins, and was first published on October 13, 2008. The Goliath Bone is one of three almost finished Mike Hammer novels that Spillane entrusted Collins to finish before his death in 2006.
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer is the first syndicated television series based on Spillane's hard-boiled private detective Mike Hammer, played by Darren McGavin. The series was produced from 1957 to 1959, and had a run of 76 episodes over two seasons. Episodes were filmed in black and white and filled a half-hour time slot. As a syndicated television series, original air dates and the order of episodes vary by geographic location – for example, in New York City. The series debuted January 28, 1958, on WCBS-TV, and the first episode aired was "Letter Edged in Blackmail".
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, with Stacy Keach in the title role, is an American crime drama television series that originally aired on CBS from January 28, 1984, to May 13, 1987. The series consisted of 51 installments: 46 one-hour episodes, a two-part pilot episode, and three TV Movies.
Charles Harding Wells was an American crime novelist and protégé of Mickey Spillane. He wrote two novels, 1953's Let the Night Cry and 1955's The Last Kill.
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