1963 - THE GIRL HUNTERS - odd ball Mike Hammer mystery

Another Mike Hammer story adapted for the screen with a couple of twists.  Mickey Spillane the author of the Mike Hammer books co-wrote the screenplay.  In an interesting piece of casting Spillane actually played the brutish Hammer himself although although not as brutish as Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly or Armand Assante in I The Jury.  Still there is plenty of unpleasantness to go around.

In this film Hammer has been on a drunken binge for about seven years since his secretary/lover/housemaid, Velma vanished.  After pulling himself together he gets some clues to Velma's whereabouts which in turn leads him to some kind of commie assassin ring whose leader is a guy called "The Dragon."  Along the way he gets involved with Shirley Eaton probably at the height of her beauty.  She was to follow up this film as the "golden girl" in the Bond film Goldfinger the next year.  The film is loaded in early 1960's paranoia particularity when it comes to the Communist conspiracy.

As a detective Mike Hammer is basically a bull in a china shop while he investigates Velma's disappearance.  There are shootings, a very nasty fight in a barn and a truly sick ending.  But lets get real Spillane is no actor but it is Mickey Spillane playing his legendary character which is interesting. To add to the weirdness the film was shot in England with some location filming in NYC.  This film is no masterpiece but it is entertaining.

 

The screenplay was by Mickey Spillane, Roy Rowland and Robert Fellows, the running time is 98 minutes.