MIKE HAMMER Season 2 (1959)

Hammer comes across an interesting leg in his hotel room

MIKE HAMMER Season 2. 1959.

Darren McGavin was back as Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer for a second entertaining season in 1959. Hammer had always been a brash, no-nonsense tough guy, but in this season he was sometimes an outright bully and frequently obnoxious, picking on older and smaller men, and acting too much like a goon [not that this is necessarily inconsistent with the character]. He especially delights in tormenting and brutalizing a sniveling, un-threatening small-time operator and candy store proprietor (played quite well by Vito Scotti), but when this same person sells an illegal gun to a man who uses it to kill a woman Hammer is in love with, Hammer pretty much lets him get away with it and doesn't even report him to the police! Go figure. Cliffhanger serial director William Witney directed many of the second season episodes, which move briskly.

There were quite a few good episodes this season. In "I Ain't Talkin" a young man (Robert Fuller) won't name a man he saw committing a robbery and murder because that man is his brother-in-law (DeForest Kelly)."Baubles, Bangles and Blood" features murder at a carnival run by an ex-con. "Husbands are Bad Luck" starred Ann Robinson [The War of the Worlds] and Jean Willes in a tale of matrimony and blackmail. "Coney Island Baby" concerned murder in a wax museum at the amusement park with a notable Lloyd Corrigan as a lovesick older man. "Save me in San Salvador" was an amusing, change-of-pace episode in which Hammer looks for an embezzling professor in South America and discovers a spirited Nita Talbot. "Swing Low, Sweet Harriet" has Lorne Greene blackmailed by a paramour played by Merry Anders [Hypnotic Eye]. "Another Man's Poisson [sic]" has Hammer investigating if a blind man's long-lost brother is the real deal. "See No Evil," about a man falsely accused of robbery and murder, boasts a fine performance from Gene Saks [better-known as a director] and outstanding work from Walter Burke as a tormented organ grinder. Virginia Gregg [Crime in the Streets] steals the show as a nasty dilettante who takes over a small theater company in "Curtains for an Angel." "M is for Mother" stars Coleen Gray [The Vampire] as a woman whose daughter is afraid that her suitor is a little bit shady. In "Now Die in It" Barbara Turner's sister is murdered and Hammer comes to uncomfortable conclusions about who did it and why. "I Remember Sally" features Doris Dowling in another vivid performance as a woman being sought by old friend Malcolm Atterbury [High School Big Shot]. An ex-con he put away is out to get Hammer in "Merchant of Menace." A wealthy woman tries to buy off her brother's girlfriend in "Bride and Doom." The final episode, "Goodbye, Al," which illustrates Hammer's good side, and his compassionate sense of justice, deals with a lowlife gambler who is arrested for supposedly killing a waitress.

But even those, good as they were, weren't the best episodes, which include: "Groomed to Kill," in which a young man (Ray Daley) about to be married is blackmailed by a woman who smooches him at his bachelor party; "A Haze on the Lake" concerned everything from fraternity hazing to a murder plot to a troubled father and son relationship, and featured fine performances from Lorne Greene, Ray Stricklyn, and John Carlyle; and (perhaps the very best episode) "Park the Body" in which a parking garage scam leads to murder, with Robert Fuller and Helena Nash in top form.NOTE: To read about the first season and the pilot with Brian Keith as Hammer, click here.

Verdict: Great episode titles, some fine scripts, and McGavin add up to a darn good private eye series. ***.

MIKE HAMMER Season 1 (1958)

Hammer (Darren McGavin) watches a zesty cat-fight

MIKE HAMMER Season 1 (1958).

I don't know what purists might think but to me Darren McGavin (Kolchak, the Night Stalker) seems like perfect casting as Mickey Spillane's New York private eye, Mike Hammer. There were forty half-hour episodes in the first season of this show, and they rarely dipped below a "B" level in quality and some were much better. In addition to McGavin, the only other regular on the show was Bart Burns [a real-life WW2 hero] as Captain Pat Chambers, and in his low-key way he's also quite good. Among the more memorable episodes, "The Broken Frame" with Dick Van Patten asks if an executed man was really innocent; "Look at the Old Man Go" with Angie Dickinson starts out as the tale of an old father smitten with a young babe but turns out to be something a bit different; the sick family drama "My Son and Heir" with Douglas Dick, Barbara Turner and Virginia Gregg deals with the death of a rich son's girlfriend and twisted relationships; and the very suspenseful "Old Folks at Home Blues" has Hammer helping a bewildered Ruta Lee find her missing husband in the Bowery and discovering a startling plot. Other interesting guest-stars on the show, many of whom made more than one appearance, include Doris Dowling, Doris Singleton (Carolyn Appleby of I Love Lucy), Kipp Hamilton (War of the Gargantuas), Gloria Talbott, Nita Talbot, Joan Taylor, Robert Clarke, Jeanne Cooper, Grace Whitney (Star Trek), Terry Becker (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), Barbara Bain, Yvette Vickers, Robert Vaughn, Paula Raymond, and Joan Marshall/Jean Arless of Homicidal fame. Boris Sagal directed the show adroitly and certainly kept things moving. The show could be quite violent at times, and the girl-happy Hammer could be a bully, even with witnesses, but that's one of the things that makes his tough character interesting. The show had plenty of good, well-orchestrated fist fights and at least one zesty cat-fight (between Doris Dowling and Doris Singleton) in "Lead Ache."

NOTE: Two years before this series aired, a Mike Hammer pilot was filmed with Brian Keith in the title role. Keith [who was the son of actor Robert Keith and the stepson of Peggy Entwhistle, who jumped off the Hollywood sign] did other TV series, but he didn't play Hammer, possibly because of other commitments. Keith is very good in the role, not necessarily better than McGavin, but different, and perhaps a bit gruffer. The pilot's story has Hammer pursuing a mobster after a newsboy and several other people are shot and killed outside a nightclub.

Verdict: Very entertaining crime drama with a solid lead performance. ***.

SUSPICION VOLUME 1

SUSPICION Volume 1.1957 TV series.

Fifteen of the filmed episodes (apparently half of the show's episodes were taped live) of the mystery/suspense series Suspicion have been collected on three discs in an initial volume. The show was produced by Alfred Hitchcock's TV unit, and the Master directed the first episode, "Four O'Clock," himself. Taken from a Cornell Woolrich story it concerns a jealous husband (E. G. Marshall) who plants a time bomb in his basement to kill his wife and her alleged lover. (Frankly, Hitch seems a little disinterested with the material until the nail-biting final minutes; still this is a good episode.) Other memorable shows include: "Heartbeat," a sad tale in which David Wayne gets a misdiagnosis from a heart specialist and doesn't realize how much he is in danger if he exerts himself (also in this episode is that very weird actress Barbara Turner); "Protege," an All About Eve variation with an excellent (as always) Agnes Moorehead  as an alcoholic actress on the comeback trail bedeviled by a viper-like, ambitious assistant (Phyllis Love); and "Death Watch" in which witness Janice Rule and protector-cop Edmond O'Brien learn that the former is to be targeted by a dirty cop whose identity is unknown. (The only trouble with this suspenseful episode is the highly illogical wind-up). 

The best episodes in this collection are "The Way Up to Heaven," a Roald Dahl concoction in which a wife (the wonderful Marion Lorne), who desperately wants to fly to Paris to see her grandchildren, is continuously stymied by the selfish manipulations of her husband (Sebastian Cabot) until he gets his amusing comeuppance; and especially "Doomsday," which features a knock-out performance by Dan Duryea as a notorious criminal planning a major bank heist -- with major complications. Other guest-stars on the show include Donna Reed, Audie Murphy, Michael Rennie, Rafael Campos, Rod Steiger (excellent in "The Bull Skinner"), John Beal. Joseph Cotten, William Shatner, and Bette Davis in the fairly awful "Fraction of a Second," in which she gives another of her pretty terrible latter-day performances.

Verdict: Good old show with more hits than misses. ***.