Now it is every author's dream to devise a character that can veritably come to life and though there have been more aims for the possibilities of characters becoming iconic than actual memory-staining characters, you would be hard-pressed to find any of them more customized than Stacy Keach's Mike Hammer. And hands down I bestow all my fealty unto his excellency. This isn't to say Darren McGavin's Mike Hammer (1958-1960) was in the business of shirking, oh no sirree , but in terms of who has immortalized Spillane's swellest shamus, the honor undoubtedly is signed, sealed and delivered to Keach. So what was the secret? Is it the theory of his mastery of cognitive dissonance, those endless entendres or maybe even the acerbic asides that make Stacy's incarnation such a compelling one. Now sassafrassin' was all the de rigueur rage when it came to OTR and 1950s televisual 'tecs. Richard Diamond, Philip Marlowe and even Rocky Fortune all liked to get in on the sardonic act and took the ball, ran with the ball. And perhaps Keach's character is a compendium of all the foretold, no but there's also something so delectably ambiguous.in the equation.
And sure there are moments the Hammer one can get downright smarmy, self-righteous and snarky - but that is oh so easily forgiven, its virtually impossible to hold any reproach for Mike Hammer at all, in the eleventh hour he'll find a way to endear you again and fill your soul with warm, gooey pathos; he is stuck in a warp after all and it can't be easy , especially with the series resurgence, when Keach would reprise his role as the titular hawkshaw in Mike Hammer, Private Eye (1997). Herr Hammer being the technophobe that he is has little choice but to contend with the internet age settling in, and then just when he thinks its safe to go to his own birthday party - someone presents him with a mobile phone , he begrudgingly accepts, he's old school all class after all - but - okay, yes I know Frank Cannon was the first one on the TV block to bandy about the contraption, but to be fair at least his car phone did have wires. (I am sure that phone did a double-act as a rotary phone on Thomas Banacek's desk) Mike is certainly a stranger in a strange land, but he knows when to be a Roman in Rome and all and you must render unto him a little respect for keeping up with the times, well as best as he could, but when it came to the dames it was never an issue to keep up with the time between the sheets even if he was another era traveler - and never you mind my narrative, its not as if I know or think I know this at first hand, I am well aware this is a fictional character I am speaking of - oh my gawd - is it? Oh Noooooo! Shit.