Mickey Spillane 1918-2006, AMPAS Celebrates Past Noms
Burbank, California—Mickey Spillane died this week, departing a world in dire need of his unwavering voice for justice, detective hero Mike Hammer. Spillane's first novel, I, the Jury—made into a movie twice—introduced Mike Hammer and thumbing through the yellowed pages of my paperback edition easily conjures the heart-thumping excitement of reading it for the first time. I picked it up in Santa Monica over 20 years ago for a few dollars and cents. It paid for itself on the first page.
"I shook the rain from my hat and walked into the room," Mike Hammer begins, before he makes a promise to his war buddy's lifeless body that sparks the novel's tight, riveting plot. "Nobody said a word." The rest is literary history, as Mike Hammer sold millions of books, adapted for movies and television, and became a phenomenon. Critics hated him for being simple and honest.
They were wrong, of course. Mickey Spillane—not the dominant intellectuals—was the true voice of the people, according to Ayn Rand, who expressed her admiration for Spillane's artistic style in a Los Angeles Times column in 1962. Mike Hammer, she observed, was a moral avenger. He did not appease evil; he killed it. Spillane knew better than most how to use a Smith-Corona typewriter to put the sizzle into the meat of his detective stories. After Mike Hammer unloads his .45 into his best friend's killer, the murderer asks: "How c-could you?" He replies: "It was easy." No self-doubt, no apology, no pleading for approval—that was that.
Mike Hammer's bitter but powerful sense of justice proved popular, because people were hungry for the sight of such an avenger—especially in an age of moral compromise, equivocation and half-measures. Ayn Rand, whose favorite Spillane novels were The Long Wait and One Lonely Night, described Mike Hammer as an embodied alternative to "the spread of an uncontested, incomprehensible evil". Yes, he is—and thanks be to Mickey Spillane for Mike Hammer.
Grateful for "Great to Be Nominated"
The Oscar nomination series sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), finishes next month at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The Great to be Nominated series restarts in spring—but it's worth catching now, if possible. The movies are better than what's playing on today's screens, the audience is civilized, and the panel discussions are totally absorbing. Host Randy Haberkamp, education and special projects chief for AMPAS, introduces and moderates each screening with a keen sense of humor.
During one recent screening, for George Seaton's all-star blockbuster Airport—thrilling every time—the beautiful Jacqueline Bisset (The Deep), who played the heroic stewardess opposite Dean Martin, shared memories of legendary costumer Edith Head, troubled co-star Jean Seberg and the movie's Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner, Helen Hayes, whom she admitted accidentally slapping for real after having a margarita during a lunch break. Several other cast members joined Miss Bisset after the movie, which was enthusiastically received.
Future screenings, which are open to the public, include Bob Fosse's Cabaret, scheduled to include cast members Michael York and Joel Grey, Paddy Chayefsky's Network and Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Next up is Monday night's screening of Fiddler on the Roof, slated to include a panel with casting director Lynn Stalmaster, producer Walter Mirisch, actor Paul Michael Glaser and director Norman Jewison. The Broadway musical adaptation, about a Jewish family in Russia, features folk dances and songs such as "Tradition," "Matchmaker," "If I Were a Rich Man" and "Sunrise, Sunset."
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RELATED ARTICLES
• 5/11/06 - Scott Holleran: Disaster Movie Roundup
RELATED LINKS
• Great to be Nominated Official Web Site
• Mickey Spillane on Amazon.com
"I shook the rain from my hat and walked into the room," Mike Hammer begins, before he makes a promise to his war buddy's lifeless body that sparks the novel's tight, riveting plot. "Nobody said a word." The rest is literary history, as Mike Hammer sold millions of books, adapted for movies and television, and became a phenomenon. Critics hated him for being simple and honest.
They were wrong, of course. Mickey Spillane—not the dominant intellectuals—was the true voice of the people, according to Ayn Rand, who expressed her admiration for Spillane's artistic style in a Los Angeles Times column in 1962. Mike Hammer, she observed, was a moral avenger. He did not appease evil; he killed it. Spillane knew better than most how to use a Smith-Corona typewriter to put the sizzle into the meat of his detective stories. After Mike Hammer unloads his .45 into his best friend's killer, the murderer asks: "How c-could you?" He replies: "It was easy." No self-doubt, no apology, no pleading for approval—that was that.
Mike Hammer's bitter but powerful sense of justice proved popular, because people were hungry for the sight of such an avenger—especially in an age of moral compromise, equivocation and half-measures. Ayn Rand, whose favorite Spillane novels were The Long Wait and One Lonely Night, described Mike Hammer as an embodied alternative to "the spread of an uncontested, incomprehensible evil". Yes, he is—and thanks be to Mickey Spillane for Mike Hammer.
Grateful for "Great to Be Nominated"
The Oscar nomination series sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), finishes next month at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The Great to be Nominated series restarts in spring—but it's worth catching now, if possible. The movies are better than what's playing on today's screens, the audience is civilized, and the panel discussions are totally absorbing. Host Randy Haberkamp, education and special projects chief for AMPAS, introduces and moderates each screening with a keen sense of humor.
During one recent screening, for George Seaton's all-star blockbuster Airport—thrilling every time—the beautiful Jacqueline Bisset (The Deep), who played the heroic stewardess opposite Dean Martin, shared memories of legendary costumer Edith Head, troubled co-star Jean Seberg and the movie's Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner, Helen Hayes, whom she admitted accidentally slapping for real after having a margarita during a lunch break. Several other cast members joined Miss Bisset after the movie, which was enthusiastically received.
Future screenings, which are open to the public, include Bob Fosse's Cabaret, scheduled to include cast members Michael York and Joel Grey, Paddy Chayefsky's Network and Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Next up is Monday night's screening of Fiddler on the Roof, slated to include a panel with casting director Lynn Stalmaster, producer Walter Mirisch, actor Paul Michael Glaser and director Norman Jewison. The Broadway musical adaptation, about a Jewish family in Russia, features folk dances and songs such as "Tradition," "Matchmaker," "If I Were a Rich Man" and "Sunrise, Sunset."
$
RELATED ARTICLES
• 5/11/06 - Scott Holleran: Disaster Movie Roundup
RELATED LINKS
• Great to be Nominated Official Web Site
• Mickey Spillane on Amazon.com
