Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer: The Complete Series [DVD]

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Product Description ------------------- In Mike Hammer's world; nothing is what it appears to be. In the first season of MICKEY SPILLANE'S MIKE HAMMER; the hardboiled detective (played by Darren McGavin) finds out the hard way that he can't trust anybody except loyal ally Capt. Pat Chambers (Bart Burns). Damsels in distress turn into femmes ale; victims turn out to be villains and even dead men won't stay in the ground.Season 1 features some of the earliest appearances of TV legends Angie Dickinson ( Woman) in Letter Edged in Blackmail and Look At the Old Man Go; Herschel Bernardi (Peter n) in A in the Arm; Marion Ross (Happy Days) in Peace Bond; Dick Van Patten (Eight is Enough; Spaceballs) in The Broken Frame; and Robert Vaughn (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) in The Living Dead. The Ames Brothers; 1958's Billboard Vocal Group of the Year; also make a musical guest appearance. .com ---- Crime novelist Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled alter ego, private eye Mike Hammer, made his television debut in this syndicated action series, which ran from 1957 to 1959 and featured TV favorite Darren McGavin (Kolchak: The Night Stalker) as Hammer. The format is strictly by the books: Hammer takes a case that is sorted out by the 24-minute mark by a combination of fast talk and fists, with a liberal application of .38-caliber punctuation. Bart Burns is on hand as lieutenant Pat Chambers, who provides Hammer with sage advice and admonishments against going too far in his pursuit of justice, and the guest cast of good guys, heels, and dames is filled out by familiar TV faces, including Angie Dickinson, Robert Vaughn, Mike Connors, Lorne Greene, and DeForest Kelly. McGavin's turn as Hammer is appropriately tough when the chips are down, but for the most part, he's an amiable sort, sweet with the ladies and balancing a tone that falls somewhere between world-weary and tongue-in-cheek (which was reportedly McGavin's idea, and ran contrary to the producers' wishes). He hews a lot closer to Stacy Keach's TV interpretation, or even McGavin's later, iconic turn as Kolchak (who also had a way with a voice-over), than the brutal avenger of Spillane's novels. If you're looking for that version, stick with Ralph Meeker, the best screen Hammer, in Robert Aldrich's harrowing Kiss Me Deadly (1955), but if it's a nostalgic dose of '50s TV detective fare you're after, McGavin's Mike Hammer has the goods. The A&E set features all 78 episodes of the series' two-season run, with no extras; image quality, as an onscreen discler notes, is decent but not crystal clear, and there are no extras. --Paul Gaita