MY GUN IS QUICK (1957)

It has long been suggested there are at least two things you do not discuss with your friends of differing opinions. There is a third: who was the best at portraying Mike Hammer. If you can accept this B-movie version, Robert Bray does a decent job and generally looks formidable, toned, and fit in a tee shirt. The action is limited with Bray becoming the "punchee" more often than not with this script. His fists are just as quick. The bold sans serif lowercase opening title credits give the impression the film is not only breaking all grammatical rules but that Bray will be breaking procedural rules as well. It was a trendy designer’s touch during this period. Overall, not a bad effort but it is long at ninety-one minutes. 

Under those trendy titles, we have Bray wearily walking by storefronts at night, exhausted from two days without sleep. The makeup for his two-day facial hair growth is dark and oily. Not a stubble to be found, however. He tries later to convince you it really is a beard with a nifty electric razor he keeps in his office. A practice that had a limited run in film. Stopping in a diner, he meets a young woman, Jan Chaney in her only movie role, fresh from the Midwest who has been trying to make survival money any way she can. For shame. Defending her self-respect, he nails a customer after he makes advances toward Chaney. Bray notices she is wearing a unique ring which he later learns is part of a famous jewel collection smuggled out of Nazi Germany during World War II. How about that?! 

In the only noir element, outside the opening, Bray is jumped and beaten in a darkened room by stuntmen. It is obvious they are pulling their punches in a precise choreographed form. Bray lies bruised and bleeding on the floor while a high-wailing trumpet sums up Bray’s consequence. A lone neon sign flashes from dark to light over his body.

From his Ford Fairlane convertible with its shoulder-wide steering wheel, Bray tails a suspect in two murders centered around the jewel collection. It is a long film-reel-eating sequence but the ride is authentic enough with in-car cameras and location shoots. The suspect disappears at Whitney Blake’s beachside home. The suspect is "confronted" by Blake then fires her assumed butler on the spot. It is a scene that seems to have little consequence to the story at that point. With that stressful situation behind her, she asks Bray if he can handle a boat. “I can handle anything.” Do tell. He has to endure a bit too polished sob story from Blake. Bray is seemingly more interested in boating. Blake is oblivious to his wise counsel. 

She rented the beach house to an Army Colonel, played by Donald Randolph, who smuggled jewels from Europe to California. He has lost track of the jewel's location due to a ten-year prison term for said theft. His character comes off as a dapper, sometimes witty, underworld kingpin than an Army vet. He and Bray verbally spar. Randolph likes his bluntness and asks for his help to locate the jewels. In a condescending, smirking role, Patricia Donahue plays one of the colonel’s companions who always seems amused by anyone beyond herself. In the end, all is sorted out with guns blazing and the jewels located. A murder rap awaits one, while another has reserved a room at the state prison.

Note: I am safe in saying, Robert Bray was not going to reprise this role again yet he makes the film better. It is not a bad film. There are numerous one-liners that could have worked but the script included few. Hammer's comebacks are not as quick as his gun. One exception might be his comment about his curvaceous secretary, Velda, played by Pamela Duncan. Bray’s pet name for her is “Beautiful.” For the first couple of weeks after she started working for him, he could not take his eyes off her. But she is smart, too. He says 'she has a brain that figures all the angles. I only figure the curves.' (rim shot)