The Girl Hunters should be required viewing for any writer with an urge to step out in front of a camera because here's what can go wrong. 1. Make sure you can act (Spillane's acting range rivals plywood). 2. Don't beat a single song in the soundtrack to death: There's one serviceable tune played by Eddie Calvert here that's treated like a farm animal; it's heard at least 15 times and is liable to drive you nuts. 4. Make sure the romantic subplot doesn't require suspension of disbelief: the babe (Shirley "Goldfinger" Eaton) here is in her early 20's and there's no convincing chemistry to explain why she'd peel off her bikini (what she wears 90% of the time in the picture) for the likes of the middle-agy private eye. (!!!Warning!!! unbelievably, they kiss... and trust me, what you see cannot be unseen). Spillane's appeal couldn't be his acting talent. What glue there is that holds the low budget thing together is veteran "Crime Does Not Pay" ex-MGM director Roy Rowland and the mildly interesting slant on vile commies... an angle that was already getting long in the tooth by 1963, outside of doomsday black comedies and big-budget political thrillers and the curiosity of seeing Spillane's interpretation of his own ham-handed character in what could be rightly called a vanity project. I doubt this baby was ever on the lower half of a double bill alongside Seven Days in May or The Manchurian Candidate. For the still-definitive Mike Hammer stick with Ralph Meeker (a vastly better actor) in Kiss Me Deadly made 8 years earlier.
Review of The Girl Hunters
