A private detective (Robert Blay) helps a prostitute being assaulted, and notices that she is wearing a unique ring. She is later found murdered and there is no trace of the ring, which turns out to be part of a cache of jewelry stolen by the Nazis during World War II.This is apparently what a B-movie film noir looks like. No actors whose names mean anything to me (including star Robert Blay). Made by United Artists, and then acquired by MGM. Now probably sort of in limbo from the financial mess of MGM...But you know what? Low budget or not, lack of star power or not, this is a pretty good story with a cool detective, some ladies of the night, shady characters...

This is a very gritty low-budget Mickey Spillane film. Yet, despite having a no-name cast and every reason to believe it would stink, the film was very good and deserves to be seen. Robert Bray (who?!) plays Hammer--and plays him directly--without being handsome or bigger than life. This Mike Hammer was very human and very believable.The film begins with an exhausted Mike coming into a greasy spoon for a bite. There he meets a young lady who had dreams of making it big in Hollywood but who is forced to survive through prostitution. Despite this hard life, Mike feels sorry for her and after a brief talk, gives her money to take a train back home to her family in the Midwest. Later, he learns that she's dead--the supposed victim of a hit and run. Hammer knows better--and spends the rest of the film tracking down her killers. Oddly, this case turns out to be related to an old jewel robbery. How can they be connected and how can Mike avoid getting his brains beaten out....yet again.As I said above, this film is pretty good despite the budget. The story is excellent and the entire production works well because it seems pretty realistic and tough. A very good but relatively forgotten example of film noir that's worth seeing.

This film has been on my 'must see' list for years and I finally got to see it recently. It is probably one of the better low budget detective yarns of the late 50s and is improved by having a producer (Victor Saville) very familiar with his material having produced two earlier Spillane/Hammer films. Robert Bray is excellent as an unshaven worn out Mike Hammer and is well supported by the rest of the cast. The script and location photography are good and the music suitably sleazy and atmospheric. What lets it down is the predictable ending, often a problem with Spillane stories - it's nearly always 'the dame that dunnit'. My favourite Hammer film is the first version of 'I, The Jury' which benefits from some superb noir imagery. This film isn't quite that good but is a serviceable and very entertaining movie.

The quintessential Mike Hammer (Robert Bray), haggard, menacing, but essentially a decent guy in a dirty world inhabited by ruthless killers, gets involved in the murder of a young aspiring actress, who only the night before he had met at a lonely downtown diner, and had helped out with bus fare back to her native Nebraska. Her death was related to a piece of jewelry she was carrying, part of a cache of stolen war time jewels. Forced to get to the bottom of the murder, not for money but because of his connection to the girl, he unravels the mystery in the typical Hammer fashion of payoffs and beatings. Released two years after Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly, MGiQ is the poorer man's version, though it has its own charms, mostly in the way of the LA settings and Bray's portrayal, tired and unshaven, but with the determination of a pit bull.