One thing I forgot to mention about Mike Hammer in the video: the number of times he’s been adapted for the big and small screen.
Kiss Me Deadly (1955) perhaps the best known adaptation of a Mike Hammer novel, with Ralph Meeker in the Hammer role, which receives a fantastic study in Danny Peary’s fun and insightful book Cult Movies I
The Girl Hunters (1962) where we get a testament to Mickey Spillane’s popularity at the time, and so he is given the lead role of his own creation
I, The Jury (1982) Mike Hammer gets an early 1980s update. Writer and director Larry Cohen wrote the script from Mickey Spillane’s first Mike Hammer novel, and was slated to direct, but was fired when the producers ran out of money within the first two weeks of filming. Larry Cohen went on to do Q The Winged Serpent and said: "...we finished way ahead of them. They went way over budget and the company went bankrupt. They sold the picture at a bankruptcy sale." What the producers lacked in funding they made up by leaning into the sleazy side of the story. Armand Assante is having a blast playing Mike Hammer. A fun watch if you don’t take it seriously.
This is just a few I highlighted for you. There’s a few TV films made of this character and his adventures.
On TV:
Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (1957-1958) with Darren McGavin as Mike Hammer
Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (1984-1985) with Stacey Keach now playing Mike Hammer
There’s two other revivals of the character for TV, both starring Stacey Keach, but I want to make a little room for other media.
Comics:
Mike Hammer comic strip (1953-1954) distributed by Phoenix Features Syndicate. Mickey Spillane repurposed this strip into the hugely successful Mike Hammer paperback novels. The comic strip was reprinted and published in 2013 as a hardcover comic book.
Max Allan Collins wrote a graphic novel titled Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer: The Night I Died, published by Titan Comics in 2018
In 1996 Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins rework Mickey’s original concept of a Mike Hammer comic strip Mike Danger, adding the sci-fi element of Mike being cryogenically frozen and revived over a century later from the 1950s
And I’m only skimming the surface. There’s Japanese movies and TV series with characters named Maiku Hama or Hama Mike. Then there’s references to Mike Hammer in video games, song lyrics, and there’s audiobooks.
But let me get out of your way. Enjoy the video.
