(1955) Director/producer Robert Aldrich's noir film, with its sci-fi horror ending, was adapted from Mickey Spillane's novel.

After asking her if she knows what happened to Lot's wife, Dr G.E. Soberin (Albert Dekker) warns Gabrielle (Gaby Rodgers) that "the head of Medusa is in the box," Pandora's box, over which to obtain its precious contents so many have been killed: "Don't open the box!"

It all begins on a stretch of highway at night when a woman wearing only a trench coat causes Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) to screech to a stop. Christina (Cloris Leachman), "a fugitive from the laughing house," tells Mike (after sizing him up as a "self-indulgent male … who never gives in a relationship"): "If we don't make that bus stop … remember me."

They don't reach the bus stop; he regains consciousness three days later in a hospital after having survived his car shoved off a cliff. Christina was dead before the crash. Putting aside his usual clients of divorce cases, Mike, a private investigator with contempt for LA's law enforcement, devotes himself to solving the murder with the help of his secretary cum girlfriend Velda Wickman (Maxine Cooper), who cautions him: "Keep away from the windows. Somebody might blow you a kiss."

Refusing to cooperate with police Lt Pat Murphy (Wesley Addley) results in the cop's revoking Hammer's private-eye license and gun permit. This isn't an impediment to our intrepid hero, who follows a thread, locating Christina's former digs (from which he removes a collection of Christina Georgina Rossetti's poems) and last name, Bailey; next her former roommate Lily Carver.

When his telephone rings (he has a reel-to-reel answering machine) he follows a string to a new Jaguar parked on the street, which he asks his mechanic Nick to check over, including making some inquires over in Culver City about a pair of unwanted accessories added to the engine. Velda comes up with some names, Lee Kawolsky and Nicholas Raymondo, formerly Christina's friends both formerly alive.

The string thickens into a rope when he tugs on it to find mobster Carl Evello (Paul Stewart) and his strongmen, Charlie Max (Jack Elam) and Sugar Smallhouse (Jack Lambert), on the other end. What was it that Nicholas possessed that was so valuable but something small - diamonds, rubies, gold, narcotics? "'Remember me,' what did she mean?" demands Carl with an injection of sodium pentothal into Hammer's leg.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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