The Girl Hunters (1963)

How sad is this?

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is not a film noir by any means, but a throwback to the dime detective novel that with several elements added became film noir in the 1940's. You'd almost classify it as film noir, but as somebody who often calls other similar themed films as noir cannot find that one element to put it in that category. As "The Big Sleep" is combination detective story/film noir, this is combination detective story/political thriller.Opening up with a drunk Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane) passed out on a dark city street, this quickly moves to his rehab, return to his detective agency, and his return to a case involving the murders of his secretary and a senator that has baffled all who have tried to solve it. Hammer ends up all over this dark city in society, in waterfront dives, and involved with soft looking dames who know more than they are willing to share. Never leaving is that solo trumpet, haunting you as it practically becomes a character in the story.Often stagnant and slow, this lacks in star power but overwhelms you with detail and intensity. At times, it becomes very perplexing, taking a metaphorical side street but suddenly back on the main drag. Of the supporting cast, only veteran character actor Lloyd Nolan is familiar, playing opposite Spillane which is the type of part he played as Michael Shayne and other B movie detectives. The future Bond girl, Shirley Eaton, is a golden blonde vixen, making the most of both her sultry looks and mysterious character. This is new wave cinema at its finest at a time when the old style of Hollywood cinema began taking on new ideas to change with the times. If you're hunting for a masterpiece, this ain't it, but it will keep your brain on its toes and your eyes full front.

Few writers get the chance to play their fictional creation on screen as pulp novelist Mickey Spillane does with his brutal private eye Mike Hammer. The aptly named Hammer is more heavy lift than finesse and the square shouldered, squint eyed Spillane along with his clipped voice allows for a nearly adequate PI interpretation. It is his words however that fail the picture with insipid dialog and a convoluted plot whose main intent seems to be to unleash graphic violence with more than a dash of sadism.Private eye Mike Hammer is off the wagon and on the sidewalk when police pick him up for public intoxication. His gal Friday has gone AWOL and probably dead and he can't shake the pain. When he finds out in the tank she may be alive he dries out and the plot thickens up with assassins an FBI agent and a doll or two.The marketing is clear on this shameless turkey from the erroneous title to the gratuitous violence and dolls in bikinis that must have dominated the trailer and lobby cards. Hunters is not without it's flashes of suspense and dark humor but they are brief and sometimes unintentional.

The Girl Hunters should be required viewing for any writer with an urge to step out in front of a camera because here's what can go wrong. 1. Make sure you can act (Spillane's acting range rivals plywood). 2. Don't beat a single song in the soundtrack to death: There's one serviceable tune played by Eddie Calvert here that's treated like a farm animal; it's heard at least 15 times and is liable to drive you nuts. 4. Make sure the romantic subplot doesn't require suspension of disbelief: the babe (Shirley "Goldfinger" Eaton) here is in her early 20's and there's no convincing chemistry to explain why she'd peel off her bikini (what she wears 90% of the time in the picture) for the likes of the middle-agy private eye. (!!!Warning!!! unbelievably, they kiss... and trust me, what you see cannot be unseen). Spillane's appeal couldn't be his acting talent. What glue there is that holds the low budget thing together is veteran "Crime Does Not Pay" ex-MGM director Roy Rowland and the mildly interesting slant on vile commies... an angle that was already getting long in the tooth by 1963, outside of doomsday black comedies and big-budget political thrillers and the curiosity of seeing Spillane's interpretation of his own ham-handed character in what could be rightly called a vanity project. I doubt this baby was ever on the lower half of a double bill alongside Seven Days in May or The Manchurian Candidate. For the still-definitive Mike Hammer stick with Ralph Meeker (a vastly better actor) in Kiss Me Deadly made 8 years earlier.

Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane) is found drunk and passed out by a police cruiser in an alley; he's taken to excessive drinking since the abduction of his girlfriend and secretary Velma, and is no good to himself or anyone else. Given a second chance and a new license to carry his cannon like .45 by new-found friend and FBI agent Rickerby (Lloyd Nolan) he sets out to find Velma and in the process meets the beautiful Laura Knapp (Shirley Eaton) who he first sees in her bikini as she's getting a suntan on an inflated raft in her pool. She makes a good femme fatale and has a neat seduction scene with him in her dark living room one night. Rickerby puts Hammer on the trail of "The Dragon" (Larry Taylor) a Soviet killer who might be connected to Velma's disappearance as well. The plot is difficult to follow, names are tossed out, and the viewer's job is to try and connect the dots. The pace is all right, directed by veteran Roy Rowland, and Spillane, though he isn't Olivier, grows on you as the film heads into a surprisingly violent ending.