Sunday 3 October 2010

Va Va Voom

"I looked him over real slow like I was trying to find a spot in the garbage pail for the latest load and said, 'Hello, stupid.'"

A favourite line of mine from Mickey Spillane's seventh Mike Hammer novel, Kiss Me, Deadly (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1952).

The book was the basis for by far the best of the Hammer films, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) [no ","], directed by Robert Aldrich. Anyone who has seen the movie will recognize the scene on the cover of the British first edition - the dame in the trench coat (Cloris Leachman in the movie) caught in the headlights. After this scene and the next few little of the book remains in the film.

Unlike Spillane's first book, I, the Jury, Kiss Me, Deadly did not have a unique Canadian edition. After the success of the American paperback reprint of I, the Jury, New American Library published Canadian editions identical, except for price, to their American books. The 1st and 37th NAL American printings are below. Art by James Meese and Barye Phillips respectively.

London: Arthur Barker, 1953

New American Library 1000 - April 1953

New American Library 1000 back

New American Library AE6593 - [1989]

New American Library AE6593 back

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