All the Kind Strangers

4/11/2016

Growing up, my introduction to the great hard-boiled work of Mickey Spillane was the TV series 'Mike Hammer', in which Stacy Keach was the ninth of the 11--so far--to portray the private eye. I was sad when the series was cancelled because he had been jailed for smuggling cocaine, but I always kept an eye out for his fine acting in the realm of cinema. This led to my great enjoyment of his work in 'The Ninth Configuration', 'W.', and 'Escape from L.A.', and when I saw that he was in this TV-movie, found in my 50-film Mill Creek pack, 'Nightmare Worlds', I was extremely enthused, though I had never seen any films by director Burt Kennedy, though I had heard of him. Keach is definitely one of my favourite character actors in contemporary or recent (post-1970) cinema. Though on a very low