MY GUN IS QUICK (1957)

It has long been suggested that there are at least two things you do not discuss with friends. There is a third: who best portrayed Mike Hammer during this era. If you can accept this B-movie version, Robert Bray does a decent job and generally looks formidable, toned, and fit in a T-shirt. The action is limited, but this Hammer refers to his fists. They are decidedly quicker than his rarely-used gun. The bold sans-serif lowercase opening title credits give the impression that the film is not only breaking all grammatical rules---a trendy designer’s touch during this period---and that Bray will also break a few jaws. Overall, not a bad effort to kill a long ninety-one minutes, but the cliched dialogue, and a hit-and-miss score by Marlin Skiles hurt it. His music during the first boat outing would fit a 1960's sit-com. The biggest hurt might be the more famous and successful Mike Hammer film two years prior, with an ending still haunting moviegoers' minds. Based on the 1950 Mickey Spillane novel with the same odd title, the film was produced by George White and Victor Saville, aka Phil Victor. The production company was Parklane Pictures (uh-oh) with distribution by United Artists. 

Under those trendy titles, we have Bray wearily walking by some sleazy storefronts at night, exhausted from two days without sleep. I found the opening a good start in establishing the Hammer character. The makeup for his two-day facial hair 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 certain films. 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. A customer makes disrespectful advances toward her, then gets acquainted with Bray's fists. 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. The trio obiously pull their punches in a precise, choreographed form. Bray lies bruised and bleeding on the floor while high-wailing trumpet blasts sum up Bray’s consequence. A lone neon sign flashes from dark to light over his body—da-da-da-dum! 

Typical of private detective movies, he and the police captain, Booth Coleman, have loud, heated debates face-to-face, leaning over a desk, noses six inches apart. It is unintentionally humorous when this happens with Bray over-selling his dialogue.

From his Ford Fairlane convertible with its shoulder-wide steering wheel, Bray tails a suspect in the jewel collection theft, the guy with the sore jaw from the diner, Richard Garland. It is a long, five-minute chase, but the ride is authentic with in-car cameras and location shooting from a camera vehicle. Expect standard studio prop car/boat filming for dialogue sound management, but the aforementioned camera work makes up for these. The suspect disappears at Whitney Blake’s beachside home. Garland is "confronted" by Blake, then fires the assumed butler on the spot. It is a scene that seems to have little consequence for 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 too-polished backstory from her. Blake is oblivious to Bray's wise counsel. 

The screenplay nearly derails at this point. Blake rented the beach house to a Second World War Army Colonel, played by Donald Randolph, who smuggled jewels back 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 fun-loving, sometimes witty, underworld kingpin rather than a veteran. He and Bray verbally spar. Randolph perks up the film and likes Bray's bluntness and asks for his help to locate the jewels. In her typical condescending, smirking role, Patricia Donahue plays one of the colonel’s companions who seems amused by men in general. 

In the end, all is sorted out with guns blazing dockside, the jewels recovered, a few funeral arrangements and room and board for one at the state's expense. Not a huge surprise, but a twist at the end reveals details that only Blake can explain. 

Note: I am safe in saying that Robert Bray was not going to reprise this role again, yet he makes the film better. It is not a bad film. Numerous one-liners 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)