Radio Recap: That Hammer Guy

"The number one selling mystery character in all fiction is on the air!The hard-hitting private eye Mike Hammer!"

That Hammer Guy was a Mutual radio program that ran from December 20, 1952 to October 5, 1953. It was an adaptation of Mickey Spillane's character Mike Hammer. Larry Haines performed as Mike Hammer during most of the run, with Ted de Corsia apparently taking over near the end, while Jan Miner portrayed Hammer's secretary Vera. In some places the show was advertised as Mickey Spillane Mysteries, which has a little more dignity than That Hammer Guy. The show was written by Edward Adamson (the Shadow, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Counterspy, the Private Files of Rex Saunders) and directed by Richard Lewis (Adventures of the Falcon, Quick as a Flash).

Adamson did his best to write dialogue as lurid as that of Spillane, such as: "You watch her walk down the park path, swinging her hips like a basketball player taking a pivot shot." But I've never read a Mike Hammer story - my knowledge of the character is mostly restricted to the 1955 movie Kiss Me Deadly - so I can't say whether the writing and characterization are correct. I do prefer Larry Haines' performances as Hammer simply because Haines had a great radio voice (he was in a lot of Inner Sanctum Mysteries).

The show is seriously held back by the recycled music; I was surprised to learn it was a Mutual program as it used the same music heard on NBC shows like Rocky Fortune, Barrie Craig, the Private Files of Rex Saunders, Cloak and Dagger and the Chase that I've complained about so often on this blog; so, apparently these music cues weren't owned by NBC because they were used on more than one network. Perhaps they were cues used by the same syndication company.

Audio quality on many of the surviving episodes is very poor; married with the low production values and rote storytelling, I can't recommend That Hammer Guy on any level; there are far better detective programs out there.

There's a collection of That Hammer Guy episodes at the Internet Archive.