WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "IT'S A DEAD BIRD!....NO, IT'S A CRASHING PLANE!....NO, IT'S....TACO MAN!!" EDITION.......

Trump bristles and fumes at Wall Street's new nickname for him, TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out)   The President raged, "This is so nasty and hurtful to call me an insulting nickname. Who would ever think of doing something so terrible....coming up with demeaning, stupid nicknames for people you don't like.....it's disgusting, outrageous and people who do that all the time should be deeply ashamed....."

Trump's lawsuit against '60 minutes' claims the show's Kamala Harris interview gave him 'mental distress'......in further details, the suit stated "The President was forced to rely on donors and a Go Fund Me campaign to pay for the additional orders of Big Macs, Quarter Pounders and Large Fries to sufficiently calm him down...'

Trump explodes at Judges who put the brakes on his chaotic Tariffs.......("As of 9' O Clock this morning,  I am ordering a 500,000 dollar penalty for any judge who rules against me.....this is only a temporary order until I can put through a bill to have them deported to El Salvador or possibly beheaded on live television....."

Trump's perpetual war on Harvard drags on and on......("We're going to turn that Ivy League dump into a vocational school for important stuff like pizza flippers, House of Pancakes waitresses, Cable TV installers and people who shake the Fries basket at McDonalds....no more of this woke crap like the sciences, filled with all those sneaky Chinese kids who'll only go back home and invent a worse from of COVID....")

To BQ visitors:  Another week survived!  Enjoy a super weekend (hint: it helps to avoid all news feeds....)

To Maga Zombies and "But I didn't vote for this" Trump voters:   To the former: Always hoping one day he'll ask you all to throw yourselves off a cliff to prove your loyalty. To the latter: Don't kid yourselves about thinking you'd have a soft landing after throwing yourselves off a cliff last November.....our advice, scrape whatever's left of yourselves off the pavement long enough to repair the damage at the 2026 Mid-Terms.......

'THE HORIZONTAL LIEUTENANT'.........THE CUTE TALL KIDS IN ANOTHER UNWORTHY COMEDY......

 The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962)

     We always loved the idea of paring tall, gangly Jim Hutton (yep, father of Timothy) with tall gangly, yet still adorably sexy Paula Prentiss.

      So did Hollywood producers, who threw them together in glossy light comedies throughout the early to mid 1960's....starting with 1960's "Where The Boys Are".

        What their films together never gave them was anything close to a decent script that would take full advantage of their expert comedic timing, awkward physicality and their ability to look like a "cutest couple" photo ripped out of a college yearbook. 

        What they got instead was formulaic, studio machine-tooled fluff, devoid not only of any witty repartee they could've hit out of the park, but even anything remotely amusing. 

         This pointless junker, Hutton and Prentiss's fourth film as a duo, fell into that odd curious Hollywood genre that thrived throughout the 1950's and 60's.....the World War Two military comedy without a single laugh anywhere in sight. 

         These films would try squeezing their unfunny jokes out of stuff like blustering, idiot officers, stupid missions that collapsed in chaos, and people in uniform falling into mud puddles....

         And did we mention lots and lots of loud overacting from actors you could see dripping with flop sweat as they desperately tried wringing chuckles out of scripts typed out by half asleep hack screenwriters. 

        Sadly, for our towering two lovebirds, "The Horizontal Lieutenant" was more of the same.....

       It's the South Pacific right after the Japanese have surrendered. Second Lieutenant Hutton has been tasked to go a small island to capture the mysterious, unseen Koboyashi, a Japanese soldier who won't give himself up....he much prefers to raid vast amounts of Navy provisions like cans of corn and Gefilte Fish. 

          To Hutton's misery, his mission interrupts his dedicated romancing of a Navy nurse (Prentiss) who every so often gives him an ounce of encouragement....(or at least as much as you can get away with in a 1962 studio comedy.)

          On the sidelines, character actors Charles McGraw, Jim Backus, Jack Carter and Marty Ingels fulfill the usual roles of Various Dumb Bumbling Military Guys. 

           It's frustrating to watch Hutton and Prentiss, who are perfection together, try to rom-com their way into our hearts without any comedic material at all. (We especially loved the way Prentiss would suddenly drop her voice into a lower register as a sort of droll special effect). 

         For the film's two stars, we'll graciously give out 2 stars (**). Without their entertaining presence, we never would've wasted our time with this film at all. 

'YOU - 5TH & FINAL SEASON......OUR FAVORITE WANDERING PSYCHOPATH REACHES HIS JOURNEY'S END.......

 You - 5th, Final Season (Netflix 2025)

     Let us now finally bid a fond farewell to Joe Goldberg, bookish sociopath serial killer who's slashed, stabbed and bludgeoned his way across America and the European continent......all in his neverending search for the 'you' of his life. His one true soulmate, worthy of his eternal adoration.

      As created by novelist Caroline Kepnes and deftly portrayed with morbid deadpan humor by Penn Badgley, Joe always remained the hero of his own story, constantly smitten by some woman who obsesses him and then unfairly (he believes) driven to murder all those who stand between him and his ideal of perfect romantic bliss.

        His quests invariably backfire on him, leaving behind a pile of collateral damage bodies, including the very apple of his eye who set his blood racing to begin with.

        But Joe, leading perhaps the most charmed life a serial killer has ever led, always manages to elude justice and capture. As indestructible as 'Halloween's Michael Myers or 'Friday the 13th's Jason, Joe lands on his feet in an all new location, with an all new girl he's crazy in lust with......(who usually doesn't realize until it's way too late that Joe's not just crazy in love.....he's just plain crazy.

          The 5th and final season brings Joe back to where it all began, the New York City musty bookstore where he started as a clerk and finished as an owner....(using the rare books glass cage in the basement as his holding cell for captive victims).

          We will NOT go into laborious details about all the baggage Joe brings with his him back to NYC.....which include his beloved young son Henry and his wealthy corporate powerhouse wife (and current 'you' du jour).

          The pure nasty fun here (for both us and the episode writers) is watching Joe once again go on a blood soaked path to eliminate all people who stand as obstacles to either his wife or himself. The series' team of writers take enormous glee in contriving impossible situations for Joe to squirm (or kill) his way out of and somehow stay out of an eventual lifetime prison sentence he so richly deserves. 

        The twists thrown at Joe become increasingly ridiculous and never believable for a minute, but c'mon now......nobody's watching this show for its attention to gritty realism.

         Penn Badgely well knows he snared the role of a lifetime and with the aid of a wicked, internal monologue narration, he makes Joe a conflicted, multi-faceted monster for the ages.....part Romeo, part Uriah Heep, and even part Donald Trump in his ability to win people over with a river of lying bullshit. 

          Many fans of this series expressed outrage and contempt for the 5th season finale....(much like the invective that greeted the ends of "The Sopranos", "Seinfeld" and "Lost").  As for BQ, honest to blog, we didn't have any real big problem with it and found it inevitable, but satisfying. 

          We do agree with the complainers about the groan-worthy use of the worst, most tiresome, worn out horror movie tropes......people surviving catastrophic wounds and other obvious death? Really?  What were you folks smokin' in the writers' room?

          But Joe's ultimate fate, after all these years and accrued corpses, sit well enough with us. And we credit the show's producers and writers for not succumbing to the lure of an off-the-rails twist to make everyone feel like we'd wasted our time watching any of it at all......

          New to "You"? By all means, dive in for a good time. Longtime fan who took issue with the wrap-up?  BQ'd love to hear from you at thebeachedquill@gmail.com.....

         BQ's Jury of One has arrived at a verdict, your Honors.....

         4 stars (****).

           

'WHISPERS OF DEAD GIRLS'....A TEACHER'S TRAGIC PAST BECOMES DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN.....

  Whispers of Dead Girls by Marlee Bush (2025)

     This swifty paced engrossing thriller deals with those particular unsavory crimes that captivate   the headlines - teen high school girls besotted with their male teachers, some of whom take cruel, sexual advantage of their immature, naive students.

     Biology teacher Ren Taylor survived such an episode when she was in high school but due to fatal tragic circumstances, her older sister Margo did not. Years later, she's come back to the same school to teach while at the same time still actively haunted by conversations with her late charismatic Prom Queen sister, whose shadow she perpetually lived in..

     Ren's grim history starts to repeat itself as she reaches out to befriend Olivia, a student possibly distraught after an encounter with popular physics teacher Bryson Lewis. Very much like the teacher in Ren's terrible past, the handsome, outgoing Mr. Lewis is admired and beloved by the student body, especially the girls in his class.

     And that's as much detail as I'd dare discuss here, at the risk of spoiling the twists and reveals this story takes. for Ren, Olivia, Bryson Lewis and the much celebrated and admired Margo. herself. All of this unfolds as Ren's relentless, reckless amateur investigation into what's going on opens a Pandora's Box of secrets and surprises.....present and past.

     This one does what you expect a solid, skillfully crafted thriller to do......hold you fast in its grip from first page to last. I realize some readers may not get on board with the over-the-top, loaded-with-exposition theatrical ending, but at that point, I was so glued to the book I went with it fully. All in all, a suspenseful ride that poses an age old, unsettling question during its epilogue. A definite double-check for thriller-mystery fans.

     4 stars (****).

'COME AS YOU ARE'....A SHARP WITTED GIRL SHAKES UP HER BOARDING SCHOOL (AND ONE GUY IN PARTICULAR).....

  Come As You Are by Dahlia Adler (2025)

     Confession time - I barely suppressed a resigned sigh and eye roll before heading into this one. Another boarding school romance, filled with gossip, hook-ups, break-ups, quirky girls, grumpy guys, villainous mean queens, dumb jocks, heart-of-gold besties, inner turmoil, wardrobe fails, bad hair days, bad parents days, nuclear sibling rivalries..... and kisses that sail right off the Richter scale.

     True, all that stuff is duly in place here. But author Dahlia Adler deploys such a wicked sense of humor and telling insights, that by the time I reached the last pages, I was sorry to see it end.

     I would've loved spending more time with the perfectly mis-matched Everett 'Evie' Riley and Salem Grayson. Evie arrives at school already a nursing a bruised heart (a loser boyfriend stolen from her by her ultra popular older sister). Adding insult to injury: she's mistakenly assigned to the boys' dorm (only partially corrected by giving her a private room there). But she's never at a loss for memorable comeback repartee aimed at boys who dare to ridicule her as the girl stuck in a sea of testosterone and a variety of foul male odors.

     Speaking of boys, in her effort to pursue the elusive goal of being cool, she engages in a pact with Salem, a darkly coiffed, darkly tempered emo guy. He needs to fulfill his parents' expectations of his becoming what's thought of a normal good student.. Their deal: he schools Evie on cool (and maybe even 'bad' a few times) and Evie transforms him into a traditional, socially acceptable boy (even trying out for team sports).

     Evie and Salem's agreement, to the surprise of absolutely no readers of this book, goes spinning off in all manner of different directions.....laugh out loud funny and dead on in the depiction of characters finding out who they are and what they want. And I lost count of how many times I wanted to rush out and find friends to quote the hilarious, astute dialogue exchanges here.

     If all the boarding/high school opposites-come-together romances were as sharply written and amusing as this one, I'm afraid I'd end up reading three of them per week. Don't pass up this one.

       5 stars (*****)

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP....SPECIAL "BBB (BIG BEAUTIFUL BULLSHIT" EDITION....

 

House passes Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill", cutting taxes for the wealthiest while cutting off Medicaid for the poorest in need.....bragged the President, "We're gonna clear out the streets and hospitals of all these sick old farts and cancerous kids who were gonna die anyway. Savings like we've never seen before...."

Trump's 'BBB' bill due to raise the National Debt into even more trillions of dollars.......("I promised you all money like the world has ever known......well, yeh, it's money you owe but I did keep our promise for really high amounts. Not my fault if you didn't read the fine print.....")

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Barbie, vows to prosecute those who assault law officers....across the country hundreds of Jan. 6th thugs who mercilessly assaulted Capitol police and were later pardoned by Trump, burst into hysterical laughter.....

Trump decrees that Harvard cannot have any foreign students......("Some of those illegal immigrant students might be so smart they're dangerous, maybe they're rapists, maybe they've got big stashes of fentanyl hidden in their textbooks,....and with all those Asian kids coming in, you wouldn't be able to get anything but eggrolls and General Tsao's Chicken at the Student Cafeteria..."

Trump ambushes South African president with audio visual display of supposed "white genocide"......and rages that he has conclusive evidence that white South African farmers were strapped to chairs and forced to watch "Superfly" and "Shaft" repeatedly for 72 hours.....in retaliation, Trump gifted President Cyril Ramaphosa with a blu-ray copy the 1964 film "Zulu"  ("Now take this one home to show everybody..... this movie is more like it! It's about zillions of Zulus against a small bunch of white guys....and the white guys win!!!")

Trump's Crypto coin dinner rakes in millions from people willing to pay for the privilege of dining with Trump......and each attendee received a fully loaded gift bag to take home....including: coupons good for a Trump University scholarship (should it re-open), a freeze-dried Trump steak, souvenir poker chips from bankrupt Trump casinos, a large size spray bottle of Bleach (should Covid surge again) and Special Trump glasses (with clear lenses) to view the next eclipse.......

       To BQ visitors......in the U.S.: Enjoy a great holiday weekend!

       To BQ visitors all over the world:  Thanks always for stopping in! Hope to see you Monday.....

       To Trump voters:  we'll borrow the words of Kristi Noem's message to everyone she deported......

                     Suck it. 

 \

'LONG BRIGHT RIVER'....AN OUT-OF-HER-DEPTH COP ON PHILLY'S MEAN STREETS.....

 Long Bright River (Peacock series - 2025)

    Not much we'd care to say about this one.....dark, dreary police procedural stretched out to eight long dull episodes. 

     Presumably, star Amanda Seyfried picked this adaptation of a Liz Moore police mystery novel as a worthy vehicle to display major acting chops. The entire story and all of the episodes revolve completely around her character of Mickey Fitzpatrick, harried single mom and Philadelphia patrolwoman.

       Seyfried is indeed terrific, bringing nuance and depth to Mickey, who walks the beat of the very tough neighborhood she grew up in. 

       But as good as her performance is, the series maintains a dead slow moody pace from beginning to end. From the first episode on, a viewer can sense that nothing good will befall Mickey or anyone around her. The overall sense of gloom and futility of existence pervades every scene......to the point where you'll start to wonder why you're spending any amount of time watching the show.

        Mickey's streetwise instincts tell her that the rash of supposed drug related deaths of young homeless women are actually murders.  But she's mostly patronized and ridiculed by her precinct's chief and other male cops, until a detective who appreciates her efforts gets assigned to the case. 

        Her home life's an ongoing trainwreck - trying to raise a young son after her slimeball husband (another cop) simply abandoned his family. And more and more, from the contempt of the neighbors she went to school with and her fruitless search for the killer, Mickey's beginning to think she's not cut out for police work.

         We can't fault the acting. Seyfried and her supporting cast turn in fine work, but the series stays content to wallow in its dank atmosphere without ever developing a pulse or a sense of immediacy. 

          Fans of Amanda won't want to miss it. We're just not sure if anyone else will muster the patience to stick it out for those eight eternally interminable chapters.......

           2 stars (**).

'THE APPRENTICE'.....THE MOST HORIFFIC ORIGIN STORY EVER......

 The Apprentice (2024)

       We could think of various jokey subtitles for this film....."Freddy Kreuger - The Early Years"....."Micheal Myers - The Beginning" ...."Jason Voorhees - The Dawn of Friday the 13th for America".

        You know the film we're talking about.....yes this is the one examines the early New York career of young would-be real estate tycoon Donald Trump, and his sometime mentor, the notorious reptilian lawyer Roy Cohn. 

        Cohn, a predatory lizard who cloaked himself in faux patriotism, made his early reputation as the prosecutor who sent atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to their death sentences. He then moved on to his most infamous assignment, assisting Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy in generating witch hunts for suspected communists.  Cohn collided with Trump when Baby Orange begged him to defend him and Trump's dad Fred, an even nastier snake. The Feds went after the Trumps for discriminating against blacks in their rental apartments. 

          (African American voters who pulled the lever for Trump might want to watch this early portion of the film carefully....to get a good look at the tub of excrement they're now bathing in)

         Under Cohn's toxic tutorship, young Trump learns the carved-in-stone rules he'd live by all his life......always be on the attack, never apologize and deny everything, and declare victory even if you lost.

          And the rest of the film takes you on a funhouse-from-hell ride through all the misery, cruelty and horrors we're now doomed to suffer through every day for the next four years......

         The only difference?  It happens on a smaller, personal scale. In the film, we only see Trump rejecting and then raping wife Ivana. Now we get to experience him raping all of us......

         This all leads to the film's final moment, its most true and telling scene. Cohn, a closeted homosexual publicly contemptuous of gays, is close to dying of AIDs. A liar to his last breath, he never stops insisting it's liver cancer. Trump gifts him solid gold cufflinks studded with diamonds, but Cohn finds out everything in them is fake, both the gold and the diamonds.....the frail master grifter has lived long enough to see how well he schooled his apprentice.....

         The two lead performances (both Academy Award nominated) are frighteningly brilliant.

         Jeremy Strong's Cohn is like an inert Cobra, waiting for the right time to strike and sink his fangs into something. Slight of build, soft spoken, he's like Jabba the Hut slimmed down to a cadaverous wraith, a hollow eyed soulless dead man walking.

          Sebastian Stan, to his credit, makes no attempt to duplicate that high whiny voice we all hear constantly on Saturday Night Live and late night talk shows. But in all the ways that count, his physicality, the internalized false bravado, the preening egotism, the warped speech drenched with lies and unkept promises, he excels. 

          (And we don't want to forget a shout-out for the excellent Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, forced to paste on a public events smile as she's paraded around as a Trophy Wife.)

           Make no mistake about what this movie is. A horror film, loaded up with all the agonies that now make up our current lives. A preview of coming attractions for a reality show we're currently trapped in.

            We're not sure 'entertaining' is the correct word to use here. 'Illuminating' sounds closer. 

             If you think you can stand to watch it, then by all means, do so. Trump voters (specifically the "But I didn't vote for this!" whimperers) should be strapped into chairs to watch it, with their eyes pinned open like Malcolm McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange".  This IS what you voted for. 

             4 stars (****). 

           

        

'ASSAULT' (A.K.A. IN THE DEVIL'S GARDEN)......WEARY BRIT MYSTERY LOW ON GAS....

 Assault (a.k.a. In The Devil's Garden (1971)

     Pardon us....we've just come out of deep mourning for the precious 91 minutes of time we wasted on this film. 

     Showed promise when we first stumbled on to it. We're big Anglophiles here at BQ and this is as British as you can get, with an interesting mix of young and veteran actors at their busiest in the late 1960's and 70's. 

       At first, the film shows signs of becoming a Brit take on the Italian giallo mysteries just beginning to make an international splash.....a serial rapist is preying on teen girls from a private school.  And he's left one of them (a young Lesley Anne Downe) in a wide awake catatonic state. 

       Then the unseen creeper-in-the-woods turns to strangling the next victim and manages to evade every effort to catch him by the local detective (Frank Finley). 

         Drawn into the hunt are the school's art teacher (Suzy Kendall), and a concerned psychiatrist (James Laurenson). Red herrings meant to distract you abound, including the sleazy shiftless of husband (Tony Beckley) of the private school's. owner and Headmistress. (Dillys Hamlett).

         Director Sidney Hayers brings no sense of style, impeding danger or suspense to the proceedings. The whole thing unfolds like a connect-the-dots paint-by-numbers TV movie. And the actors must've sensed that since they all look slightly bored. 

            Hovering around the plot like a buzzing fly is an almost unrecognizable Freddie Jones playing an annoying tabloid reporter getting in everyone's face. (He's the only one who seems to be having a good time....)

          Worthless and dull from beginning to end. Even fans of the actors involved won't find much to enjoy in their work here. 

            Zero stars (0). Give it a hard pass. 

'THE SAFARI'......A TROUBLED FASHION DYNASTY RUMBLES IN THE JUNGLE......

 The Safari by Jacklyn Goldis (Release Date 5/20/25.)

     Now here's a set up no mystery lover could possibly resist. A large dynastic family, filthy rich and nursing no end of deep dark secrets and hatreds, come together at their very own South African Safari lodge. Their trips into the bush are only for hunting the wild animals with cameras, but at least one person (or persons) among them has set their sights on human prey.

     The Babel family, headed by iron-willed Matriarch Odelia, runs a fashion empire that's built its reputation on conservation and planet-saving. as it churns out top-of-the-line couture.. But there's a rumble in the jungle brewing inside their lush lodge surrounded by lions, elephants, leopards, monkeys, rhinos and hippos. Widowed Odelia has brought along her much younger boy-toy fiance Asher, himself a renowned designer for the company.. This doesn't sit well with her three grown children, Sam and twins Joshua and Bailey. Also in the Babel orbit are characters harboring their own long held set of scandals and secrets - Odile's life-long companion-secretary Gwen, safari guide Markus and lodge manager Violett.

     We all know that sooner or later, this Tower of Babels (sorry, couldn't help myself) is going to crumble like a herd of elephants T-boned it. And how much a reader will enjoy this book comes down to when author Jacklyn Goldis will get down to business and start sprinkling the landscape with some dead bodies. As in....murder victims.

     Prepare yourself.......cause the author forces you to spend an inordinate amount of eventless time with this bulging nest of unlikeable people until you're ready to cry out, "Enough already! We get it, they're all terrible, dysfunctional and suspicious......time for one of 'em to go belly up before I bail out!"

     Here's the good news. When a murder and disappearances start poppin', the book goes into overdrive with more twists and reveals than the several barrels of monkeys hanging around the lodge. And these twists never stop coming at you right up to the very final pages.

     I loved the exotic setting, which shows the author's enormous amount of research (and affection) for the magnificent wildlife and scenery of South Africa. For those willing to hang on (as I did) for the impressively large pile-up of genuine surprises, 'The Safari' finally does deliver a solid entertaining mystery read. Looking for a dangerous getaway? You can't beat a place with a river full of crocodiles and some predatory humans........

     4 stars (****)

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL "LET ME WHIP OUT MY 747" EDITION

 

Trump's 400 million gift 747 from Qatar will cost additional millions and additional years to take apart and re-assemble after a security check.....explained Trump, "But a big guy who rules as an absolute King needs a big ass plane.....I need a big-ass plane that's bigger than any plane the world has ever seen.....the only 747 that will feature a built-in McDonald's open 24/7...."

Trump's military parade glorifying his birthday might cost upwards of 45 million dollars......Trump proudly stated, "But it's money well spent, don't you think? Just think, the money would only be wasted on stupid things like VA benefits, school lunches, medical research and those one-foot-in-the-grave old farts on Medicaid....wait'll you see my huge missiles on parade.....nobody's seen anything it like since....well, Stormy Daniels...."  Replied Daniels to Trump's comment:  "Missile?  More like a small laser pointer....."

So called 'Health Care" chief RFK Jr. tells Congress, "Nobody should be taking health care advice from me".....dialing the statement back, Kennedy complained that during a recent prostate exam, it's possible that a nurse jammed in a suppository saturated with truth serum......

Trumpanzee who ordered a 600 dollar gold Trump watch from one of the President's grifting stores was shocked to receive a watch whose face was missing the "T" in 'Trump'....Trump's customer service for Grift, Incorporated informed the buyer, "Well think of it this way....you're now the proud owner of a one-of-a-kind extra valuable collector's item. Only the President's most treasured customers received a special "Rump" watch....the President's way of telling you how he sees you....a Rump for a rump, so to speak...."

Department of Justice and Secret Service investigating ex-FBI chief James Comey for supposedly finding beach shells arranged as '86 47'....a possible threat to '86' Donald Trump....Comey pleaded innocence....."C'mon, guys......who do you think got that walking turd elected in 2016 with my phony re-investigation of Hilary?  I don't remember anyone saying 'Thank You!" for that...In a related story, a DOJ spokesperson announced they were dropping their investigation into Hilary Clinton for arranging additional shells on the same beach to read, 'Comey U R Idiot'.("We applaud Ms. Clinton for her honesty....")

Trump declares that Taylor Swift is no longer "hot" since she became his enemy.....America, we present to you the Leader Of the Free World, the man with the nuclear codes and controller of the U.S. economy.......terrified yet?

To all BQ visitors:  Have a terrific weekend!

To Trump voters:  How to you even sleep at night?  May your night time nightmares become as real as the one you're making us all live through every day. To hell with you......

'MY GUN IS QUICK'......AND I NEED ANGER MANAGEMENT......

 My Gun is Quick (1957)

         When it comes to films derived from the brutal pulp mysteries of Mickey Spillane, there's only one every buff remembers.....Robert Aldrich's 1955 'Kiss Me Deadly'. Who can forget that punch-em-up bodies galore noir, with its glowing box and finale nuclear meltdown. 

         So it's fitting that here at BQ, we unearthed a Spillane/Mike Hammer caper that nobody ever heard of......filled with similar raw energy but not much imagination. (No nuclear meltdowns...darn...)

        Here Mickey's take-no-prisoners P.I. Hammer is embodied by amiable, B-minus toiler Robert Bray. Bray's a big 'n tall galoot, similar in formidable build to James Arness and towers over everyone else in the cast. (You might remember him as the bus driver in the Marilyn Monroe "Bus Stop")

          But Bray's not so good at projecting threat and danger, so he overcompensates by erupting in angry rages while delivering most of his dialogue. (Years later, he settled into an easier, more suitable role as a friendly Forest Ranger in the long running 'Lassie' TV series.)

          Come to think of it, almost everybody in the film nurses a short fuse, but that's perfect for this rough tough little low budget pulper, filled with hubba-hubba dames and an escalating body count. 

          Hammer, through a late night coffee shop encounter with a pretty would-be actress, ends up on the trail of a priceless stash of stolen European jewels. His hunt leads him into the willing arms of a vivacious divorcee (a gorgeous Whitney Blake, later to settle into a career as a TV sitcom mom). But in addition to falling for the smokin' hot Whitney, Hammer's up against a reptilian aristocrat Col.Holloway (Donald Randolph), who's lusting after the jewels the same way Sydney Greenstreet coveted the Maltese Falcon.

         Our forever hot-tempered hero toughs it out though, punching and shooting his way through anyone unlucky enough to get feisty with him. (Considering the film's poverty-level budget, there's a fairly ambitious junkyard sequence where Hammer almost gets hammered by a ton of scrap metal dropped on him from a crane.....)

            We'll not reveal the movie's big twist reveal, which is no surprise at all even if you only have a passing familiarity with detective story noir. But for us, it didn't make this modest little popcorny slug-a-thon any less enjoyable. 

             For curators/collectors of B Movie double feature fodder, it's worth checking out.  3 stars (***).

           The next similar bunch of these we promise to check out - the iconic 'Kiss Me Deadly' and 1963's "The Girl Hunters". (That one features, we josh you not....wait for it....author Mickey Spillane himself as Mike Hammer (!!)   Stay tuned......