The Girl Hunters (1963)

Since his girl Friday Velda went missing, the hard boiled detective Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane) went on a drinking binge and is now a recovering alcoholic. His longtime friend (Scott Peters) on the police force asks him for his help on a case. Coincidentally, the case may lead him to discovering Velma's fate. In a rare case of a book's author playing his own creation, the writer Mickey Spillane plays Mike Hammer. Mike Hammer had been adapted for the screen several times (notably Aldrich's KISS ME DEADLY) and on TV where Darren McGavin played him. Spillane is no actor and his performance is rather amateurish but physically he looks the part. But as directed by Roy Rowland (HIT THE DECK), the film feels like a parody of hard boiled pulp fiction in spite of itself. The kind of writing that was spoofed in The Girl Hunt Ballet in Minnelli's THE BAND WAGON. The plot is confusing and never comes together and there's (no surprise) just the teeniest bit of misogyny ("I don't hit women, I kick them") in the narrative. With Lloyd Nolan, Shirley Eaton (GOLDFINGER) and Hy Gardner.