R.I.P. Mickey Spillane

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060717/ap_on_en_tv/obit_spillane

― gear (gear), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:11 (twenty years ago)

Good grief, he was still alive? Um, RIP I guess. But he was no Michael Avallone. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:13 (twenty years ago)

I had no idea he was still alive. Dude could write.

Ah, Ned beat me to the 1st point.

― More Tongue Feldman (noodle vague), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:14 (twenty years ago)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:15 (twenty years ago)

RIP

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:17 (twenty years ago)

Good looking old fella

― Hard like armour (Hard like armour), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:27 (twenty years ago)

how many writers actually play their lead characters in movies?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

Dude could write.

well, not really, but

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 17 July 2006 22:08 (twenty years ago)

i think he meant literally.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 17 July 2006 22:09 (twenty years ago)

whoa, i just watched kiss me deadly last night.

― celebrity mole: hawaii (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 17 July 2006 22:10 (twenty years ago)

there's gotta be a thesis out there called "watch me deadly" right? somewhere?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 17 July 2006 22:12 (twenty years ago)

I meant in two ways: he had a talent, and he also neatly fit his own definition of what a "writer" is. I think there's a clear argument to be made that the top-flight genre writers up to and including, say, Stephen King, were massively more talented as writers than the likes of Grisham or Da Vinci Joe are today.

― More Tongue Feldman (noodle vague), Monday, 17 July 2006 22:13 (twenty years ago)

I KILLED MICKEY SPILLANE (er, probably not)

― celebrity mole: hawaii (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 17 July 2006 22:13 (twenty years ago)

please watch the sum of all fears

― gear (gear), Monday, 17 July 2006 22:16 (twenty years ago)

"well, he's a writer." - sam beckett, when asked to comment on william burroughs

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 17 July 2006 22:26 (twenty years ago)

Well, I saw the Miller Light ads and, I think, the Girl Hunters where he played Mike Hammer. Never read anything of his. But for some reason his name was always something I could identify with. No idea why that would be.

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 01:45 (twenty years ago)

i haven't read any of his books, but kiss me deadly is awesome

― a.b. (alanbanana), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 05:07 (twenty years ago)

hes a better writer then chandler, but not as good as mccain

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 06:07 (twenty years ago)

he was alright, but, from what i've read, i like chandler and mccain better. the whole mike hammer character (as opposed to phillip marlowe and sam spade) was the most bad/dumb-ass of the detectives. he was all about kicking/slapping ass and taking names without really doing a whole lot of, er, thinking..

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 06:12 (twenty years ago)

The movie Kiss Me Deadly is far better than the book though, which is pretty pedestrian fare. It doesn't have the atomic McGuffin, instead it's about drug trafficking or something. RIP and all that, but there were many better crime writers in the 50s than Spillane.

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 07:16 (twenty years ago)

the atomic mcguffin is the best part!

― celebrity mole: hawaii (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 07:18 (twenty years ago)

Again with another "wow, I didn't know he was still alive."

I always liked him, but not necessarily his books. (Jim Thompson is still my #1 noir/pulp writer).

― Fsck Washing Ong's Hat (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 07:18 (twenty years ago)

Mickey Spillane is well worth reading--total right wing sexist, homophobic, racist stuff. When we get to the seventies his books are really bizarre--sloppily plotted, curdled with hate and with loads of bizarre and unpleasant sex stuff.

Kiss Me Deadly the film is like a parody or critique of the original novel (similar to the relationship between the novel and film of Starship Troopers.)

I will have to check out the charity shops and see if I can find any Spillane that I haven't read yet.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 07:46 (twenty years ago)

Apparently Spillane hated the movie version of Kiss Me Deadly.

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 07:48 (twenty years ago)

who is this mccain that spillane is supposed to be better than - James M Cain? Ed McBain?

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 07:51 (twenty years ago)

Kiss Me Deadly the film is like a parody or critique of the original novel

An interview with the screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides bears this out:

"[Director Robert Aldrich] gave me the Mickey Spillane book Kiss Me Deadly, and I said, 'This is lousy. Let me see what I can do.' You give me a piece of junk, I can't write it. I have to write something else. So I went to work on it. I wrote it fast, because I had contempt for it. It was automatic writing."

Later in the interview he says the script took him three weeks, that he included the atomic pandora's box because nuclear war was "in the air at the time, not too long after Hiroshima" (from a book I have called The Big Book Of Noir").

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 07:57 (twenty years ago)

It would be great if all obituaries of Spillane were written in a pastiche of his writing style.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 09:05 (twenty years ago)

he and ayn rand exhanged dirty letters

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 16:10 (twenty years ago)

Q and Z?

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 16:15 (twenty years ago)

did you know that gaby rodgers (lily carver/gabrielle) was married to jerry lieber?

― celebrity mole: hawaii (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 16:23 (twenty years ago)

Are many of the books better than the hideous excerpts I've read? I've always assumed the guy and Jackie Susann were the king and queen of marginally literate, rich novelists.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 17:27 (twenty years ago)

Valley of the Dolls is really well-written.

― Annie Get Your Gin (noodle vague), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 17:34 (twenty years ago)

who is this mccain that spillane is supposed to be better than - James M Cain?

haha, easton led me astray. yes: james m. cain. i also always confuse cain and dashiell hammett like i did above.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 18:04 (twenty years ago)

yeah i was gonna say the last thing anyone needs to do is credit this guy with the movie "kiss me deadly"

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 23:33 (twenty years ago)

btw wasn't he vocally pro-spousal abuse and stuff? among other things...

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 23:33 (twenty years ago)

The early 80s film version of "I, the Jury" which stars Armand Assante of all people as Mike Hammer is a really swanky movie.

― Earl Nash (earlnash), Wednesday, 19 July 2006 01:29 (twenty years ago)

hes a better writer then chandler, but not as good as mccain
Raymond calls liar from beyond the grave.

"Mr. Cobb was my escort," she said. "Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten--when Larry Cobb was sober."

― milo z (mlp), Wednesday, 19 July 2006 01:35 (twenty years ago)

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