Pamela Duncan

            On Monday I worked on my journal. In the afternoon I decided not to take a bike ride because it looked and smelled like rain, even though the forecast said there was a only a 30% chance. It didn’t rain after all but what also had motivated me to stay home was that I was so far behind on my writing. I guess one reason I was behind was because of the extra time my bike rides had taken on Friday, Saturday and Sunday because I’d had to detour around the Taste of the Danforth street festival. The other reason was that instead of a couple of half hour TV shows at night, I’d been watching whole movies, which take almost an extra hour.

            I watched another Mike Hammer movie on Monday night. This one was the film noir My Gun is Quick from 1957 and based on Mickey Spillane’s second Mike Hammer novel.

            Mike Hammer, dead tired from having been up for more than fifty-two hours, goes into a diner that is empty of customers except for an attractive young woman called Red. He gets a cup of coffee and Red asks for a refill but the cranky cook tells her it’s a dime. She says for him to give her two cents worth. She hands Hammer a toothpick and tells him it’s to prop open his eyes. He finds out she’s from Nebraska and wants to go home. He offers her something to eat and she takes a bowl of soup. A young man comes in and tries to force Red to leave with him. Hammer punches him. The man pulls a knife but Hammer’s gun is quickly against his throat. The man leaves. Hammer gives Red some money to buy some clothes and a ticket home and he also writes his name and address on a napkin. He notices she is wearing a unique ring. She says it’s worthless but it won’t come off.

            The next day the cops want to talk to Hammer because they find his name and address on Red’s body after a hit and run left her with a broken neck. Pat Chambers shows Hammer the girl’s things but the ring is missing. They check with the morgue and there is no ring but her finger is skinned, as it would be if a tight ring has been forced off. Hammer draws the ring for Pat. He recognizes it as part of the missing Venacci jewels. A Colonel Holloway found the jewels in Germany during a spy operation at the end of WWII and brought them to the States. Holloway was imprisoned but he’s just been released.
            Hammer goes back to the diner to question the cook and threatens him until he coughs up that he thinks she worked at a nightspot called The Bluebell and had a friend there named Maria. Hammer goes there and sees Maria doing a mild but sexy burlesque act with actual dancing for a mixed clientele. Instead of working the stage, Maria dances from table to table and when she comes up to hammer’s he holds up a sign that reads, “It was no accident. Red was murdered”. When Maria’s act is over, Hammer goes to her dressing room. She tells him that Red lived in the same house that she does. She takes him there and they find that Red’s room has been torn apart. Maria tells him that Red said the ring was given to her by a Frenchman who’d had his tongue cut out during the war. He sweeps up at the Bluebell in the morning and so they go to see him then. The Frenchman writes that he will show him something at 10:00 at 625 Odin Street. When he gets there though, on a stairway outside the building there is a crowd gathered around the dead body of the Frenchman. Hammer recognizes a man walking away at the top of the stairs as the same man that had harassed Red in the diner. Hammer follows him and the man gets into a car. Hammer follows him in his to an upscale neighbourhood where he parks in front of a large house. No one answers the bell and so Hammer goes around the back to find an attractive woman named Nancy sunbathing. They chat a bit and she offers him a drink. It turns out that the man Hammer followed is Nancy’s butler, Louie. Hammer tells her about his two encounters with Louie and then catches Louie listening at the door. Nancy fires him. Hammer calls Pat Chambers to tell him to pick up Louie for questioning. Nancy hires Hammer as a companion/bodyguard and his first assignment is to go out on her yacht with her. When they get back Hammer notices that someone has been in Nancy’s house because he’d closed her beachside door. On the floor Nancy finds Red’s ring. Hammer sees a man running for the dock and he goes after him. In a waiting boat is a man with a hook instead of a left hand. While Hammer is struggling with the first man the second hits him over the head with a boat hook. They escape and Nancy runs to Hammer. He recovers quickly and goes to Nancy’s boat but it won’t start because the men fowled up the motor. Hammer fixes it and they try to go after the burglars. Hammer tells her about the Venacci jewels and Nancy wonders why they would be looking for them in her house. Because Nancy had been in Europe for ten years, over that time she’d rented the house to three different tenants, though she’d done it through an agency and doesn’t know who the tenants were. Hammer thinks a Colonel Holloway might have been one of them. From the boat Hammer calls his secretary Velda to have her find out all the names of Nancy’s tenants for the last ten years.

            Nancy asks about Velda and Hammer has a great line: “She’s got a brain that figures all the angles. Mine only figures the curves.”

            When Hammer gets back to his office Velda confirms that Holloway was one of Nancy’s tenants and she also shows him an issue of Life Magazine with an article about the Venacci jewels. There is a photo inside of Holloway posing in front of Nancy’s house.
            Maria arrives to tell Hammer that a man has been looking for her at the Bluebell and she’s scared. He leaves her with Velda and goes to see Pat. The cops have to let Louie go because he has alibis for the times of both murders.

            Hammer goes looking for Maria but she’s not there. A drunk man with two girls says he can have one of his. The blonde named Dionne gives Hammer a key and an address to meet her in one hour. Hammer comes in through the back and Dionne is there but as Hammer expected, so is Holloway, facing the front door, but no longer pretending to be drunk. Holloway thinks that Hammer has the jewels and he wants them because they are his but he will give Hammer 25%. Holloway doesn’t believe Hammer doesn’t have the jewels and pulls a gun but gives it to Hammer. He tells Hammer that the mute Frenchman had his the jewels for him during the ten years he was in prison. A French gang that works on the docks is also after the jewels. The man with the hook is Laroche.

            Hammer goes to Maria’s room but she’s not there and he is jumped by three men who knock him out. When he comes to he sees on Maria’s table the copy of Life magazine that Velda had found.

            Hammer goes to Nancy’s place and tells her he thinks the Venacci jewels are hidden in her house. Hammer sits down and says he’s bushed and Nancy offers him a drink. She slips a sedative into it and when he wakes up at noon the next day she admits it and tells him it was for his own good. He seems to appreciate the gesture. There is a call from Pat telling him that Maria has been killed.

            Hammer goes to his office and Holloway is waiting. He tells him that whoever has the jewels will use a diamond cutter named Teller who is arriving in Los Angeles that day.

            Teller arrives and Hammer tails him after he leaves customs. He walks through the docks where a crane with an electromagnet is transferring scrap metal between a boat and the dock. The crane operator is a member of the French gang. He picks up a load of metal and controls the electromagnet to follow Hammer from above. Just as the magnet is positioned directly above him, Hammer looks up and dodges dives out of the way when the metal drops. Teller gets into Louie’s car and drives away. Hammer finds out from customs which hotel Teller is staying at but when he goes there Teller has yet to check in.

            Hammer hears on the police radio in his car that there is trouble at Nancy’s place. There is also an all points bulletin to bring Mike Hammer in for questioning. Hammer goes to Nancy’s place but it’s crawling with cops, so he climbs to the roof of the house next door and jumps to Nancy’s second floor balcony. He watches from upstairs the scene in Nancy’s living room as Louie’s dead body is being taken away and Teller collapses on the floor. There is a hole that’s been made in one of Nancy’s walls and there is a space between the bricks where something might have been hidden. Hammer goes back to his car and Holloway is in the back telling him that Laroche has got the jewels. They go to the docks and Holloway points out Laroche’s boat. They try to sneak up to the boat but Holloway accidentally knocks something over and the gang begins firing at them. Shots are exchanged for a while before Hammer takes out one of them and he and Holloway jump to the boat. Holloway is shot and Hammer shoots the one that got him. The only one left is Laroche, who runs out of bullets and Hammer begins to fight him. In the struggle, Laroche is impaled on his own hook. Hammer finds the jewels on Laroche’s body. Holloway is still alive and Hammer brings him the jewels. He looks at them and dies happily knowing they are his. Just then Nancy pulls up beside the boat in her yacht and Hammer jumps aboard. He takes the wheel and she looks at the jewels. “Are they all there?” he asks. She answers, “Yes, all but the ring” but then she realizes Hammer has trapped her into admitting she’d been after the jewels from the start. She’d gotten them to take the ring from red and then pretended to find it. She’d also been behind the murder of Frenchie and had only pretended to fire Louie. The sedative she’d given Hammer had given her time to silence Maria. Nancy wants Mike to go to Mexico with her but he says he’s turning her in. She pulls a gun on him. He accelerates the boat, causing her to lose her balance, then grabs the gun and tosses it overboard.
            Nancy was played by Whitney Blake who played the mother on Hazel and was the co-creator of One Day at a Time. She was also the mother of Meredith Baxter who played the mother on Family Ties. Velda was played by Pamela Duncan who was in Attack of the Crab Monsters. Red was played by Jan Chaney. Maria was played by Genie Coree