The Big Showdown

Caleb York, John Wayne, and Mickey Spillane

In the mid- to late 1950s, Mickey Spillane took a break from writing novels about his famous detective character, Mike Hammer, and tried any number of other things.

Some of this was man’s-man-style wish-fulfillment — racing stock cars, deep-sea diving, getting shot out of a cannon (with the Clyde Beatty Circus, where he was also a trampoline artist). Other endeavors were an extension of his position as the most popular fiction writer of his time — writing a Hammer comic strip, recording a Hammer record album, and appearing on TV (spoofing himself on The Milton Berle Show, for example).

Spillane was also heavily involved with various film and TV projects, including writing a live-action episode of the Suspense TV show, developing projects for Berle and another famous Mickey (Rooney), and writing non-Hammer screenplays in several genres. He even developed an anthology series with Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry, wherein he would be the Hitchcock-style host; but the Mike Hammer series TV producers complained and the show never came to fruition.

In addition, Mickey wrote and directed his own short Hammer film (apparently lost), showcasing his choice for the role by way of his New Jersey cop friend, Jack Stang, a decorated Marine veteran of World War II. Appearing with Stang were legendary comedian Jonathan Winters and Bettye Ackerman, later the female lead on TV’s Ben Casey.

The Hammer “test film” project — written up in several magazines of the day — reflected Mickey’s dissatisfaction with what producer Victor Saville was doing with the Spillane properties the esteemed British director/producer was bringing to the screen. While appreciation for the 1953 3-D film version of I, the Jury has grown among film noir afficionados, and Robert Aldrich’s 1955 adaptation of Kiss Me, Deadly is now considered a classic, Spillane at the time was frustrated at being frozen out of the film-making process by Saville. Mickey wanted a hand in the writing and the casting, while Saville made promises that were never kept, just “handling” the famous blue-collar writer.

Actor John Wayne and his producing partner, Robert Fellows, were friends of Mickey’s, and decided to give the frustrated Mike Hammer creator a chance to show what he and Jack Stang could do, by casting them in the circus picture Ring of Fear (1954). Mickey played himself, a famous mystery writer, and Stang played an implied Hammer. Two things backfired, but in a good way.

First, Mickey blew Stang off the screen. The tough but affable Mickey, a natural before the camera, was clearly the Mike Hammer character come to life, while Stang remained in the background, big, looming, but making little impact. Second, producer Wayne was unhappy with the footage being shot and asked Mickey to rewrite the picture into more of a suspense movie and not just a backstage-at-the circus piece. Director William Wellman was brought in to shoot the new Spillane-scripted footage. On an earlier occasion, Mickey and Wayne were at a rough-cut screening of another Wellman picture, and the famed director was having problems with a key scene.

Wayne said, “Mickey knows what’s wrong with it. Tell him, Mickey.”

And Spillane told “Wild Bill” Wellman how to restructure the footage, giving the great director editing advice that was gratefully embraced.

As for Ring of Fear (available on DVD), Mickey declined any screen credit for his rewrite, or for that matter payment. So producer Wayne had a white Jaguar convertible, which he’d seen Mickey admiring in a Los Angeles showroom, delivered to the writer’s home in Newburgh, New York, the little sports car wrapped in a red ribbon, with a card signed, “Thanks — Duke.”

The John Wayne/Mickey Spillane friendship included the writer being invited to occasional screenings for his input, whenever the mystery writer happened to be out in Hollywood. But it also extended, on one memorable occasion, to Mickey’s services as a screenwriter.

The existing correspondence in Mickey’s files from Wayne doesn’t make it clear which man initiated the Western project. At the very least Wayne expressed his enthusiasm for a Spillane-written Western. Mickey told me that The Saga of Cali York (as it was originally titled) was intended for Wayne himself, and had been commissioned by the actor; but it’s also possible that Wayne might have handed York off to Randolph Scott, Glenn Ford, or Robert Mitchum, who starred in various Wayne-produced films of the era, or some other appropriate star.

About the time Mickey would have turned in his screenplay, Wayne’s production company was suffering financial woes due to the out-of-control budget — exacerbated by later box-office disappointment — of The Alamo (1960). While Wayne’s company Batjac eventually recovered, the superstar for a time had to make pictures for other producers and various studios, to dig himself out of the hole his pet project had dug.

Wayne’s now ex-producing partner, Bob Fellows, went on to team up with Mickey on two films, The Girl Hunters (1963) and The Delta Factor (1970), both from Spillane novels. The latter film is minor, but The Girl Hunters (now on DVD and Blu-ray) is significant if for no other reason than Spillane himself played Mike Hammer and co-wrote the screenplay. The persona Mickey presented in The Girl Hunters became the basis of the self-spoofing one he used when appearing in the enormously successful Miller Lite commercials of the 1980s and ’90s (with “doll” Lee Meredith of The Producers fame).

Over the years, I heard Mickey speak fondly of Wayne, and the Wayne screenplay, any number of times, and while not a man given to expressing regrets, Mickey clearly wished the York project had come to light. The writer often said that Mike Hammer was a modern-day Western hero (“He wore the black hat but he did the right thing”) and Spillane felt a kinship with the Western genre.

Shortly before his death in 2006, Mickey indicated to his wife, Jane, that I should be given his files, and asked to complete various unfinished projects — an amazing honor. This included at least nine Mike Hammer novels in various stages of development, several other unfinished crime novels, and a handful of movie scripts. Of the latter, York jumped out at me.

The Legend of Caleb York, published in 2015 by Kensington Books, is essentially a novelization of Mickey’s unproduced screenplay. My editor, Michaela Hamilton — long a Spillane fan — has asked me to continue the saga of Caleb York, drawing upon various drafts of the screenplay and notes in Mickey’s files.

Mickey provided York with a rich back story as a Wells Fargo agent, which I may yet explore; but my wife, Barb (my collaborator on the “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mysteries), suggested I write a direct sequel that further explores the characters, conflicts, and world Mickey created in his screenplay.

The Big Showdown is that sequel.

Again, picturing John Wayne as Caleb York is permitted but not required. I lean a little to Randolph Scott myself. Barb pictures Joel McCrea. And I bet Mickey wasn’t picturing Wayne, either.

He was likely seeing, in his mind’s eye, a guy named Spillane.

— Max Allan Collins