Author Micky Spillane’s Hammer is a patriotic anti-communist who does battle on behalf of anyone who’s been wronged. A .45 automatic is his tool of choice because its the only thing criminals understand. He walks a fine line, but in the end an innocent person’s death is avenged, and justice is served.

Movie screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides’ Hammer is a sleazy, capitalist pig who makes his living by blackmailing adulterous husbands and wives. He takes sadistic pleasure in violence for its own sake, no self-doubt involved.

Bezzerides wrote of the script: “I wrote it fast because I had contempt for it … Spillane didn’t like what I did with his book. I ran into him at a restaurant and, boy, he didn’t like me.”

Spillane’s book about a patriotic P.I. busting the mob and bringing down corrupt politicians was probably too pro-America for leftist Bezzerides, so he turned protagonist Mike Hammer into a sadistic capitalist who ends up destroying LA in a nuclear blast. No wonder Spillane wasn’t too happy!