![]() ![]() ![]() Hammer’s character belonged smack inside the ‘40s and ‘50s (Spillane also played a detective in the 1954 film Ring of Fear). That film was made at a time when the real-world, war-fueled malaise that fueled Spillane’s prose was in the process of transforming into a paranoia that Spillane’s Hammer character wasn’t ready for. ![]() Almost two a decade after Deadly’s theatrical release, Spillane himself played Hammer in the 1963 film The Girl Hunters. ![]() Kiss Me Deadly was neither the first nor the last film adaptation of Spillane’s Hammer stories. In it, Meeker’s muscular physique and well-practiced squint convey Hammer’s flinty skepticism as written by Spillane. Hammer was most memorably portrayed by Ralph Meeker in Dirty Dozen director Aldrich’s classic 1955 film noir Kiss Me Deadly. Here was a character too rough around the edges to be played even by Humphrey Bogart, whose early gangster pictures emphasized his brawler’s charisma. Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly, which the Criterion Collection released earlier this week, is more violent, sexist and overpoweringly primitive than rival fictitious detectives like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. ![]()
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