ThiefHott Too much of everything

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Nonureva Really Surprised!

dougdoepke Unfortunately, Bray's bland version of iconic Mike Hammer can't hold together an over-extended 90-minutes. I might have responded differently had the actor evinced more than one emotionless expression and ditched that perfect wardrobe right out of Gentleman's Quarterly. Then too, there's that meandering screenplay whose threads come and go-- but crucially fail to weave anything like good suspense. Now, I'm no fan of the Cold War's "a slug in the commie gut" Mickey Spillane, but the movie as a whole fails to project his particular brand of blue-collar gusto. And that's despite the many half-clad babes that parade in and out. Also, looks to me like the screenplay goes awkwardly out of its way to emphasize Hammer's principled core. That's probably to reassure 50's audiences that this is not Spillane's ethically challenged version. In that sense, the movie's a somewhat revisionist working of the decade's favorite PI.Still the movie manages a few positives, especially Jan Chaney's beautifully shaded performance as a forlorn hooker named Red. It's one of the more subtly soulful turns I've seen. Note too how that same opening scene registers Hammer immediately as a tough guy but with heart. Then there's a good traveling look at LA's notorious freeways, which must have been an early morning shoot before the system-wide jam starts. Note too,the big glimpse of 50's upscale decor. No wonder this Hammer only parades around in fine suits. And I liked that imaginative junkyard set-up that proves even recyclables can be a menace. What the movie really needs however is a strong touch of style. I'm just sorry proved stylists like those of of Kiss Me Deadly (1955) didn't have a hand in this pedestrian production. As things stand, the programmer remains an appropriately obscure entry in an otherwise durable franchise.

charlytully "Additional music composer" for MY GUN IS QUICK was the first film job held by John Towner Williams, then 25 years old, and later of JAWS, STAR WARS, INDIANA JONES, SCHINDLER'S LIST, etc., etc. fame. Most of William's work between MGIQ and JAWS was for television (Gilligan's Island, and so forth), though he might have made a few feature film ripples with the Gidget series. However, I think most movie-goers may have first encountered this Max Steiner of his day with the score of the drive-in thriller, DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING (1969), to which Williams contributed. Personally, I found the score for MY GUN IS QUICK overbearing, on a par with the whole needlessly brazen sound design and Robert Bray's testosterone-laden crude caricature of a Sam Spade-type private eye. However, I suppose for some people the crass, cheap, brassy knock-off civilian investigator Mickey Spillane offered with his Mike Hammer character is preferable to the greater thought put into Dashiell Hammett's anti-hero earlier, or the compelling libertarian sentiments John D. McDonald set forth later with his Travis McGee character. So the crude MGIQ soundtrack serves as sort of a poor man's version of the far superior score for the Frank Sinatra vehicle, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, which opens with very similar percussion riffs.The plot of MY GUN IS QUICK is mighty convoluted, perhaps to cover the fact that the characterizations are paper-thin, with few likely to care about those peopling the silver screen therein. If DOUBLE INDEMNITY is a 10 in the pantheon of film noir achievement, MGIQ would be lucky to garner a rating of 2 or 3. Nevertheless, John Williams is SO important to the movie world, this misfire merits a "6" just on its status as an historical curiosity.

MartinHafer This is a very gritty low-budget Mickey Spillane film. Yet, despite having a no-name cast and every reason to believe it would stink, the film was very good and deserves to be seen. Robert Bray (who?!) plays Hammer--and plays him directly--without being handsome or bigger than life. This Mike Hammer was very human and very believable.The film begins with an exhausted Mike coming into a greasy spoon for a bite. There he meets a young lady who had dreams of making it big in Hollywood but who is forced to survive through prostitution. Despite this hard life, Mike feels sorry for her and after a brief talk, gives her money to take a train back home to her family in the Midwest. Later, he learns that she's dead--the supposed victim of a hit and run. Hammer knows better--and spends the rest of the film tracking down her killers. Oddly, this case turns out to be related to an old jewel robbery. How can they be connected and how can Mike avoid getting his brains beaten out....yet again.As I said above, this film is pretty good despite the budget. The story is excellent and the entire production works well because it seems pretty realistic and tough. A very good but relatively forgotten example of film noir that's worth seeing.

bmacv The Mike Hammer adventure My Gun Is Quick survives against some pretty steep odds. First, it comes from the paw of Mickey Spillane, with the problems that implies; its cast and crew are (and were) unknowns; it's all but forgotten; and what little word of mouth circulates around it tends to be dismissive. But, like the curate's egg, it's not too bad, and parts of it are pretty good.Hammer (Robert Bray), on stakeout for the last 52 hours, staggers into a diner for another cup of joe. He flirts with a young hooker, giving her bus fare back to Nebraska. When she's found dead the next morning, he takes it personally. A baroque ring she wore turns out to have come from an Italian treasure stolen during the war. Seeking to avenge her killing, Hammer, in the inflexible tradition of Los Angeles private eyes, works his way along the underbelly of the City of Angels to the missing loot and the murderers.It's not quite the same town where earlier gumshoes Dick Powell and Humphrey Bogart and Robert Montgomery plied their trade. As in the memorable Mike Hammer movie Kiss Me Deadly of two years earlier, it's the late-Eisenhower L.A. of freeways and oil derricks and strip clubs, a changing landscape where the Mexican presence can no longer be ignored. Even the wealthy live in cold, '50s-moderne showplaces of spindly blonde furniture and plate glass walls draped with sheers. But Hammer's quest is the old and familiar one of multiple murders, duplicity and femmes fatales of increasing lethality.Wisely, the movie takes Hammer 'as is.' It doesn't pull back from his easy violence, his racism ('greaseball' is a favorite epithet), and his misogyny ('Off my back, chick – I'm tired!' he bellows at his secretary Velda). But it keeps its distance and doesn't glamorize him, either (though it does grant him his primitive 'code'). The movie (shot in black and white by Harry Neumann, with over 350 titles to his credit) has an almost retro look to it, and there's a jazzy, percussive score by Marlin Skiles, another unsung veteran of countless genre programmers. The acting stays serviceable and occasionally better, but the script keeps careless track of some of the plot strands (the man from Amsterdam gets misplaced entirely). My Gun Is Quick boasts one distinctive passage: Hammer looks in from an upstairs window down at a chaotic scene crowded with police, ambulance drivers and several of the characters, as a body is wheeled away. It's filmed entirely without dialogue, the only sounds being the wind, the surf and the muted music of bongo drums.