Review of I, the Jury

I, the Jury (1953)
7/10
Question: Why did you? Answer: It was easy.
21 May 2013
Warning: Spoilers
****SPOILERS*** Based on the Mickey Spillane character from his book of the same name "I the Jury" introduced to the movie going public in film Noir black and white and 3D no less the very first glimpse at the Neanderthal like tough as nails private eye Mike Hammer,Biff Elliot, who shoots and beats his opponents brains out first and never bother to ask them any questions later. Since most if not all of them are in no physical condition to be able to answer them anyway. It's just before Christmas that Mike finds out that his good friend and army buddy the one armed Jack Williams, Robert Swanger, was found murdered in his Manhattan apartment. William an insurance investigator has been checking out a number of claims for missing or stolen jewelry at the time of his murder. Despite being told to stay out of the case by police Captain Pat Chambers, Preston Foster, Hammer has his own plans to find and bring to justice his good friend Jack Williams killer. Even if he has to turn the entire city as well as state of New York upside down in order to do it!

Hammer going on the contents of a collage yearbook given to him by Captain Chambers that was found in Williams apartment at the time of his murder gets the feeling that his killer was one of those students in the yearbook and tracks down everyone in it to find Williams killer. As for Williams fiancée Myrna Devlin, Frances Osborne, Hammer finds that she's holding something back in why Williams was murdered and the reasons behind it. And as it later turned out the collage yearbook did have the clue to who but also why and what were the reasons for Williams being knocked off. Hammer also tracks down psychoanalyst Doctor Charlotte Mannings, Peggie Castle, who was treating both Jack Williams and his fiancée Myrna Devlin for severe emotional problems in her clinic. It's Dr. Mannings who's also been secretly supplying Myrna a recovering drug addict with illegal drugs!

***SPOILERS**** Mike Hammer we also find out is being used by Captain Chambers as a battering ram to brake the Jack Williams murder case wide open without Hammer, who's too busy tearing up the whole place, actually knowing about it. What Williams found out about a secret jewelry smuggling operation that covered two continent's turned out to be his own death sentence. Now his friend Mike Hammer is determined to be the both judge and jury, thus the title of the movie "I the Jury, as well as executioner in having those who murdered him pay with their lives for it. Check out Film Nior veteran Elisha Cook Jr as the drunken department store Santa Clause "BoBo" who clues Mike Hammer into what were the reasons behind Jack Williams murder and what the mysterious collage yearbook had to do with it.
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