RALPH MEEKER

Ralph Meeker in Code Two

RALPH MEEKER (1920 - 1988).

Meeker came to the public's and critics' attention when he replaced Marlon Brando in the stage version of A Streetcar Named Desire and won very good reviews. Then he got the lead role in William Inge's Picnic. The story goes that he turned down the lead in the film version because he didn't want to be tied down to a studio contract, and this negatively affected his career thereafter. He never attained the super-stardom of, say, a William Holden (who took Meeker's part in the film version of Picnic) but he did have a solid career and won many raves for his work in the years to come, amassing 110 credits in movies and on television. His pictures include The Naked Spur, Ada, The Food of the Gods, Jeopardy, The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown, and others that Great Old Movies is looking into this week (see below) -- including the famous Kiss Me Deadly, Meeker had three wives, the best-known of which was the actress Salome Jens of Seconds. He was only 67 when he died. 

KISS ME DEADLY

KISS ME DEADLY (1955). Produced and directed by Robert Aldrich.

Private eye Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) picks up a desperate runaway, Christina (Cloris Leachman of Happy Mother's Day, Love George), on the highway, embroiling him in a convoluted and dangerous case after they are waylaid and she is tortured and murdered. Mike barely survives himself, but he is intrigued and angry enough to determine to find out what's actually going on. As Hammer proceeds in his investigation over the objections of Lt. Pat Murphy (Wesley Addy of The Garment Jungle) -- who takes his licence away -- the bodies begin to pile up. Meanwhile Mike decides to shelter Lily Carver (Gaby Rodgers), the late Christina's terrified roommate. She and everyone but Velda (Maxine Cooper), Mike's secretary, seem concerned over a certain package that contains what Velda refers to as a "whatzis." After a number of people are beaten and killed, and Mike himself is subjected to truth serum by an unseen foe, he learns that Velda has been kidnapped. The climax occurs at a beach house occupied by a certain sinister doctor, all leading to a literally explosive finale.

Wesley Addy and Ralph Meeker

Kiss Me Deadly is one of Aldrich's best films. Although one could easily argue that it becomes hard to follow at times and under close inspection may not even make much sense, it is so brisk, well-acted, and absorbing that it is actually quite fascinating. Frank De Vol's score adds to the atmosphere,
as does Ernst Laszlo's superb cinematography, making the most of its LA locations. Then there's the acting. Meeker follows in the footsteps of Biff Elliott of I the Jury made two years earlier, and he is also near-perfect as a more thuggish variation of Mike Hammer. (Mickey Spillane did not care for the changes made to the character from novel to film.)

Percy Helton comes afoul of Ralph Meeker

Gaby Rodgers is so good as Lily that it's a surprise that she didn't become better known, but in addition to a few TV credits, she only did two pictures, this and an independent film that was barely released. Paul Stewart scores as a sinister mafia bigwig, Wesley Addy makes a convincing cop, and Marian Carr, Albert Dekker, and Maxine Cooper give flavorful performances as well. Percy Helton is up to his usual weaselly no-good-ness and figures in a sequence when Hammer uses an especially sadistic method to get a morgue attendant to talk. For a film made in the fifites, Kiss Me Deadly can be rather raw. Although Christina's torture is never actually shown, her dangling naked legs and the horrendous screams she omits tell the story in a way that might have sickened the stomachs of some viewers back in the day. (Alas, she keeps screaming as if the pliers were still being applied to her even though it's clear that no one is standing beside her any longer.)

Kiss Me Deadly deserves its reputation, although there are some critics who wax quite pretentiously about it -- profound it is not; cinematic it is. NOTE: Ahead of his time, Mike Hammer keeps an early version of an answering machine in his home office. Although much of the film's basic plot is derived from the novel, it deals strictly with mafia hoods and nothing radioactive.

Verdict: Despite the silly title, this is hard-hitting and very well done. ***1/2. 

THE GIRL HUNTERS

Mickey Spillane and Scott Peters

THE GIRL HUNTERS (1963). Director: Roy Rowland.

"Tough guys I got all the time. Old tough guys I don't need." -- bar owner.

Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane) has given up his practice and gone on a months-long bender after his secretary, Velda, supposedly ran off with another man and may be either missing or dead. His once-friendly antagonist, Captain Pat Chambers (Scott Peters), was also in love with Velda and is furious with Mike for putting her in danger. Sobered up, Hammer helps investigate the murder of a government agent, all the while hoping to find Velda, with the help of G-Man Rickerby (Lloyd Nolan) and a beautiful widow, Laura (Shirley Eaton), whose husband's murder may also have something to do with the case; a communist plot. Then there's the "red" hit man known only as the "Dragon" (Larry Taylor). Frankly, it's hard to follow the convoluted Girl Hunters at times, although the movie has a fast enough pace and is entertaining and well-acted. Spillane may not have been impressive playing himself in Ring of Fear, but in this he's actually quite good as his creation Mike Hammer. Spillane may not have been an Olivier or had great range, but he could have been developed as a tough guy hero or gangster in future films, but he was probably making enough money as a novelist. Scott Peters scores as Pat; he mostly had television credits. Nolan [Portrait in Black] is excellent, as is Charles Farrell as Grissi, who also assists Mike in the adventure. [This is not the Charles Farrell who appeared on My Little Margie.] Shirley Eaton, who had previously appeared in some of the British "Carry On" movies, appeared the following year in Goldfinger and became especially famous. Although Eaton gives a fine and sharp performance in Girl Hunters, she retired to raise a family after appearing in a few more mostly mediocre movies. Girl Hunters is quite gruesome and hard-edged (if not graphic) at times with a particularly nasty coda, but its central mystery is never quite resolved. Kenneth Talbot offers some superior black and white Panavision cinematography, and the film is well-directed and well-produced.

Verdict: Despite many imperfections, this is pretty good film noir. ***.

UNDER THE RAINBOW: AN INTIMATE MEMOIR OF JUDY GARLAND, ROCK HUDSON AND MY LIFE IN OLD HOLLYWOOD John Carlyle

UNDER THE RAINBOW: AN INTIMATE MEMOIR OF JUDY GARLAND, ROCK HUDSON AND MY LIFE IN OLD HOLLYWOOD. John Carlyle. Carroll and Graf; 2006. Foreword by Robert Osborne.

Watching an episode of the old TV show Mike Hammer, I was struck by the performance of a young actor I'd never heard of: John Carlyle. He was good-looking, but better than that, he was talented. I looked him up and discovered that he had written a posthumously-published -- Carlyle died in 2003 at age 72 -- book about his life and his relationship with Judy Garland. Actors who don't quite make it big in Hollywood, rarely write memoirs [or at least have them published] unless they are somehow linked to a famous name, so we have to take all the Judy Garland business with a grain of salt. That Carlyle was a fan of the singer and that he became one of her late-in-life friends (or hangers-on) is not in doubt, but his "affair" with Garland is a little more problematic as Carlyle is openly gay. The "romance" comes off more like Garland and a gay fan fooling around and playing house, talking of marriage the way two little kids would. (Although Carlyle never applies the term to himself, his attempts to come off as bisexual are unconvincing, almost a throwback to the skittishness of the homophobic period he grew up in.) There is much, much less in the book about Rock Hudson, but some interesting observations about agent Henry Willson. Carlyle writes quite well, even if he can't quite shed that air of affectedness that he did not betray in his performance on Mike Hammer. Carlyle's failure to become a big name or even well-known could be attributed to many factors -- his sexual orientation, his distractions with drugs and alcohol, the vagaries of fate and Hollywood, the lack of big breaks or the ability to seize upon them when they arrived -- but, if nothing else, he did have talent. Like many actors, Carlyle often comes off as superficial and self-absorbed, and frankly it's kind of pathetic that he never found his soul mate in another man but in  -- Judy Garland!? -- making the poor guy an incredibly dated gay stereotype! (He refers to the man he lived with in his later years more as a companion than partner or lover.) His passages on foreign travel are facile if glib.

Verdict: A fairly interesting and well-written look at a Hollywood insider and also-ran, but not essential reading. **1/2.