Fictional Hardboiled Detective Mike Hammer, as created by Mickey Spillane. has been adapted several times to television. Mike Hammer is a tough, no-nonsense, veteran PI who teams up with his Sexy Secretary Velda to solve the worst crimes of New York City.
The first of these adaptations was Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1958-1960), which was a syndicated television program that lasted 78 episodes over two seasons. The titular character was played by Darren McGavin. This series was frequently criticized for its use of excessive violence and McGavin's choice to play the character somewhat tongue in cheek.
The second, more successful, adaptation was also called Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1984-1985) and starred Stacy Keach. It was originally envisioned as a standalone TV movie, More than Murder but became a backdoor pilot when it was received positively. It would consist of 51 episodes and three TV movies (Murder Me, Murder You, The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, and Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All). The movie and series were produced by Jay Bernstein, who acquired the rights from Mickey Spillane for $1. It is also known as The New Mike Hammer (1986-1987), after changing its title for the third season.
The series would be revived for a third time with Stacy Keach once more reprising the role in Mike Hammer, Private Investigator. (1997-1998). Kent Williams was the only other character from the Eighties series to return but in a different role.
The Series contains the following tropes:
- Adaptational Personality Change: In the Stacy Keach version, Mike is more of a Bumbling Dad flummoxed by technology and modern social mores. He's also significantly kinder and more understanding of criminals. The literary Mike Hammer is closer to the Punisher, sharp as a knife, and a ruthless avenger of the innocent.
- Adaptational Relationship Change: Velda in Private Eye is more like a daughter or little sister figure than romantic option due to the on-screen age difference. Oddly, this doesn't prevent Mike Hammer from hooking up with many other girls Velda's age.
- Bloodless Carnage: The Stacy Keach series often had shoot outs where people would simply fall over, clutching their chests.
- Cartwright Curse: Mike Hammer would become involved with many women throughout the various series but none of them would last very long. Even Velda moved on to his sidekick in Private Investigator.
- Deadpan Snarker: The Stacy Keach version would often crack wise with a Double Entendre or Stealth Insult versus his literary counterpart.
- Denser and Wackier: Mike Hammer, Private Investigator had a wacky neighbor yoga instructor (played by Stacy Keach's wife) and a lot more comedy about how Mike was a living anachronism.
- Drop-In Character: Mike Hammer's Sensual Slavs Polish yoga instructor, Maya Ricci, neighbor from Private Investigator.
- Fanservice:
- Every episode of the 1980's series contained the "Hammer-ettes", busty women in low tops and push-up bras emphasizing their ample cleavage, who'd exchange a Double Entendre or two with Stacy Keach. The 1997 revival Mike Hammer, Private Eye wasn't much different.
- Mike Hammer, Private Eye episode "Murder" was about an internet lingerie catalog with a near constant display of women in sexy underwear.
- Femme Fatale: The beautiful women Mike Hammer meets are as often as not the killer or at least involved.
- Hard Boiled Detective: Stacy Keach's Mike Hammer fulfills all of the archetypes.
- Hopeless with Tech: The Private Eye version cannot work a cellphone or computer to save his life.
- Indecisive Parody: The Stacy Keach version, which is too serious to be a straight-up farce of Film Noir, but most of it is played incredibly tongue in cheek.
- Karmic Death:
- In the New Mike Hammer episode "Elegy For a Tramp", Hammer and the killer are fighting when the killer winds up hanging precariously from a hotel balcony. He begs for Hammer to give him a hand, to which he replies, "I'll do even better...I'll give you a standing ovation!", and claps...very...slowly...as the killer slowly loses his grip and falls to his death from the balcony, similar to the way he killed his first victim.
- In the Mike Hammer, Private Eye episode "Prodigal Son" is killed by a junkie mugging him to pay for a fix. Said junkie was on the same toxic dope the villain had been peddling to the streets.
- Kavorka Man: Stacy Keach, while not an unattractive man, is a somewhat stout middle aged man that, nevertheless is treated as an irresistible sex magnet to much-much younger women in both his series. This is especially noticeable in Private Eye.
- Letterbox Arson: One episode of the 1957 TV series has an extortion racket demand "protection fees" against arson. Those that don't pay have hydrogen gas pumped into their heating oil intake, where it seeps out, filling the workspaces. The ignition source is the ringer relay on the rotary-dial telephones.
- Lighter and Softer: Mike Hammer's novels are some of the darkest, sexiest, and most violent novels of crime fiction for their time. The Stacy Keech version was significantly nicer and less prone to either violence or sex, though he was involved in plenty of both. Averted by the 1950s series that was considered to be overly violent for its time.
- Long-Lost Relative: Murder Me, Murder You has the primary appeal that Mike Hammer has a secret daughter that he doesn't know about. She dies at the end of the movie.
- Mysterious Woman: In the Stacy Keach series, Mike Hammer would repeatedly catch sight of the same beautiful woman (played by Donna Denton) who would then vanish before he had a chance to talk to her.
- The episode "A Face in the Night" (which was made because Donna Denton, who agreed to remain anonymous for the sake of the role, took a guest role on an episode of Perfect Strangers) explained just exactly who she was and her connection to Hammer. Despite this, she still appears in the 1989 TV-movie "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All" (again played by Denton) and in "Mike Hammer, Private Eye" (played by Rebecca Chaney).
- New Media Are Evil: In Mike Hammer, Private Eye episode "Murder", Mike Hammer discovers a snuff film ring on the internet. Much of the episode deals with how the internet is being used to exploit women.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The D.A. (named Lawrence D. Barrington in the Stacy Keach series) can't stand Hammer, and is always eager for a chance to lock him up.
- The Barrington character turns up again in "Mike Hammer, Private Eye", only this time his name is Barry Lawrence, and he begins the series as the Deputy Mayor before becoming D.A. Kent Williams played both characters.
- Once an Episode: In the Private Eye version, Mike Hammer would catch a glimpse of "The Face" and then miss her before he could say anything to her.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Mike Hammer discovers that he has an illegitimate daughter in Murder Me, Murder You and as the trope indicates, she dies at the hands of the villain in the end.
- Pretty in Mink: Quite a few ladies in the 1980s series.
- Private Detective: Mike Hammer's profession in all of the series, as per the books. Somewhat subverted in that he often involved himself in cases where the client was dead or as a self-appointed Vigilante Man.
- Private Eye Monologue: Very prominent in the Stacy Keach series and used to remind audiences of the plot between commercials.
- Retro Universe: The TV version with Stacy Keach is clearly set in the 1990s (the Cold War is over, and Mike makes use of personal computers), but his fashions and societal mores are still in the 1940's.
- Sidekick: Nick Farrell took the role up in Mike Hammer, Private Eye, being the son of his deceased friend from the pilot. He was not quite a Kid Sidekick, being about twenty, but significantly younger than Mike Hammer.
- Sexy Secretary: Velda plays this role in the show, much the same as the books.
- Stout Strength: The Stacy Keach version of Mike Hammer is a bit on the portly side but able to lay out men much larger than him.
- Vigilante Man: Mike Hammer would often involve himself in cases where there was no clear client or payment for his services.
- Would Hit a Girl: Mike is willing to shoot back at the women who are shooting at him, though they either survive or Nick is the one to actual;y kill them.
