Mickey Spillane, who died yesterday at 88, never wanted to be tarred as a great prose stylist. He got his wish. To him, "author" was an effete label for effete losers whose effete books didn’t sell. He said he had "customers," not readers. He had a lot of them. His titles (e.g., The Girl Hunters, The Erection Set) reveled in their pulp shamelessness. His hero, Mike Hammer, was either a cut-the-crap good guy or a vigilante thug, depending on your point of view. Spillane, a red-meat, Red-baiting Cold War conservative and one-time federal agent, didn’t do middle ground.
Strange then, that his Kiss Me Deadly would be made into one of the most subversive film noirs of the 1950s. Director Robert Aldrich supposedly hated the Hammer character (who would become a prototype for Dirty Harry Callahan) and sought to play up his sadism and savagery. Adrich also upped the stakes into the surreal-o-sphere, making the MacGuffin at the center of the mystery a glowing briefcase that symbolized America’s frightening nuclear might. The movie attracted the (negative) attention of Congress, which cited it as a corrupting influence on youth. (It was certainly an influence on Repo Man and Pulp Fiction.)
As a former circus performer, Spillane probably just enjoyed the show. He sold several properties to Hollywood, including The Girl Hunters, where he starred as his hero, Mike Hammer, and the CBS series Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, which introduced us to Stacy Keach and his costar, Mustache.
In short, the man worked for a living, and the work paid well. And if any of you delicate bastards has anything contrary to say, say it below, bearing in mind I can and will break your nose.
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I grew up a huge fan of HBO’s Mike Hammer tv series, which featured Stacy Keach in the lead role. Love or hate his reactionary writing style, Spillane’s popularity and simple “good guys can be bad if they are kicking commie azz” action style paved the way for such heroes as Ian Fleming’s James Bond.
I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Spillane on a press tour he did for Mike Hammer. Unlike some of the other participants in the tour he was down to earth and very nice to this then lowly PR intern. RIP Mickey.
I hung my head down, and spit. The rush of blood to the side of my face came to a boil in my mouth, and the taste of metal hung on my lips even as the dark blob hit the wooden floor.
The smile on the goon standing over me told me he enjoyed that last closed-fist lovetap he delivered. In a moment, he’d enjoy the next one even more.
My hands strained against the ropes, holding me tight against the old wooden chair. I could feel my trusty knife hidden in my back pocket, but there was no way I could reach it at this angle.
I’d have to take some more punishment before I’d get a chance…
– For Mickey Spillane, 1918-2006
Visit http://www.reidaboutit.com/blog.htm for the rest of the tribute.
I loved Mike Hammer. Mickey Spillane was a genius.
Ya gotta love a guy who not only created Mike Hammer, but also played him in the 1963 movie “The Girl Hunters”!
Too bad you don’t actually know what a MacGuffin is. The briefcase in Kiss me Deadly is not a MacGuffin as it remains the focus of the plot and ends up destroying Hammer and his love interest depending on what ending of the film you see. The money in psycho, the love triangle in Vertigo, or the stupid little statue in North by Northwest are real MacGuffins. Silly Scott Brown throwing around film terms he knows nothing about.
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