I, the Jury

Plot synopsis:
Dr. Charlotte Manning is young, beautiful, blonde, and well-to-do psychiatrist motivated by greed. To increase her profit, she becomes involved with a crime syndicate with ties to both prostitution and drug-trafficking. The leader of the organization is Hal Kines, who has had plastic surgery to make him look younger, and who recruits young women for the sex trade. Manning herself has upscale clientele, though her trade is not prostitution but coercing her patients into becoming dependent upon medications, primarily heroin, in order to extort money from them. On the surface, Charlotte Manning maintains her façade as a renowned psychiatrist.
As the sinister plots of Manning and the crime syndicate evolve, Jack Williams falls in love with Myrna Devlin when he stops her from committing suicide by jumping from a bridge. Williams himself is a former New York police officer who has lost his arm in World War II saving the life of his friend Mike Hammer. Williams asks Dr. Manning to admit Devlin to her clinic for psychotherapy. After Myrna has become clean, she and Williams become engaged, though the couple maintains a casual friendship with Manning. Over time, Williams becomes suspicious of Manning's business, and secretly investigates further. He realizes that Hal Kines, one of Manning's college students who has spent some time at her clinic and who has become one of her casual acquaintances, is in fact a criminal. When, at a party given by Williams in his apartment, Charlotte Manning finds old college yearbooks whose contents would expose Kines' criminal actions, she has to act fast. After the party, she goes home but on the same night, undetected, returns to Williams' apartment and shoots him in the stomach with a silencer as she watches him die slowly. Then she takes the college yearbooks and leaves.
On a Saturday morning, Hammer picks up Myrna Devlin and gives her a lift. They drive to the Bellemy twins' estate in the country for a gigantic all-day party there. Charlotte Manning says she has some business to attend to and will be there in time for a tennis game due to take place that evening. After an unsuccessful attempt at playing tennis himself, Hammer gets rid of his sleep deficit by spending all day in his room, fast asleep, with "old junior" — his gun — close to him. He is woken up just in time for dinner, during which Harmon Wilder, the Bellemys' lawyer, and Charles Sherman, Wilder's assistant, are pointed out to him. This is a fine — and the final — distractor in the novel: Wilder and Sherman are suddenly missing from the party after Myrna Devlin has been found shot. In fact they had illicit drugs on them and did not want to be found out. During the tennis game, Mary Bellemy asks Charlotte if she can "borrow" Hammer. Then she leads him into the woods where they have sex. They return to the party just as a maid discovers Myrna's body in an upstairs room, in front of a large mirror. Both Pat Chambers and the police are called in, and the alibis of each guest is checked. Again Charlotte can convince everyone that she could not have done anything.
Back home, Hammer retreats into his apartment to think. Finally, he knows the identity of the killer. This is when he goes to Charlotte's place, recapitulates the whole crime and finally shoots her dead, despite her efforts to pull the trigger on him.

Tags: suspenseful, neo noir, cruelty, murder, violence, revenge, sadist

Review:
This actually a combination of two Spillane books "I the Jury" and "The Body Lovers"  This is not a great film, but good.
The action and plot are pretty good and Assante gives a decent performance, but the thing that I remember the most is just how damn sexy Barbara Carrera is in this movie.
It's worth watching for any fan of Barbara Carrera and sleazy action movies.
Oh the 70s was a great time for crime features although "I, the Jury" was made in the early eighties it had me thinking it was from the 70s like some sort leftovers that found itself in the wrong decade.
Private detective Mike Hammer looks into the case to seek revenge when he learns of the killing of his one-armed ex-army buddy.
What he digs up about his mate's death, is something quite big."I, the Jury" is a tough as nails, lean and steamy pulp crime / film noir feature that's sexually charged (an opened orgy sequence) and brutally violent (a ghastly slit throat) amongst a rather seedy backdrop.
Filling in the role as the iconic Mike Hammer is a fittingly hardboiled, but wry Armand Assante.
I The Jury is an exciting action flick from 82, I first saw two years later and I must say me and my friend, saddled up in front of the t.v were engrossed, and underage to watch this sort of thing, but who's counting.
Armand Assante is tailor made for our great fictional detective, Mike Hammer.
Investigating the murder of a close buddy who served with him in Nam, Hammer stumbles upon a conspiracy trying to plughole his efforts, people going at great lengths to stop him, and make sure that people he talks to are people who'll be having their last conversation.
The scene with those two naked twins, the psycho, a younger better looking version of Richard Lynch, doing them, is intense, and as I can remember, provided heavy viewing on my first watch back in 84 that I got away, renting this R movie, as I did a few others.
There's action aplenty in this tasty, flick that has sex, beautiful nudity, some sick violence, and Assante.
The thrilling action climax is great, plus another little after climax, which has Assante properly avenging his friend's death.
If perhaps it was just a ripoff of the pulp classic "I, the Jury" with Armand Assante, I would have enjoyed it.
But as Mike Hammer, it's weak.The biggest differences between true Mike Hammer and this movie is Armand Assante's portrayal.
At least they got the ending right, although Armand Assante was still way too melancholy.I can say several positive things about this movie.
The scene when Assante does a full assault on the criminal's compound with an M-16 is well directed, a good solid action scene (no way connected with the book).
Velda and Assante's love interests were both more interesting to watch than the rest of the movie.In closing, I would like to say that Hollywood still has the chance to make a good, solid film based on Mike Hammer.
This so-so detective yarn feels more like a TV movie than the noir-ish piece of cinema you might expect from a Spillane novel.
But it has a few moments.What makes this movie worth watching is the smoking Nicaraguan beauty Barbara Carrera.
I THE JURY (1982), the first Mike Hammer movie since THE GIRL HUNTERS (1963).
Armand Assante's too short & skinny, his accent's all wrong & he seems too laid-back about all the nastiness going on, like he's a wise-guy when he should be a dangerous Neanderthal.
(Velda's supposed to be a brunette, how hard is it to get even the simple details right?) Paul Sorvino as Pat Chambers isn't bad, but he gets forced to involve Hammer against his will, while in the original, he happily fed Mike all the info he could, knowing Mike would not be held back by rules & regulations the way he would be as a cop.
The highlight of the film is no doubt Barbara Carerra, who gets to have one HOT nude sex scene about 2/3rds of the way in-- but it doesn't seem like she's really given much chance to act.
Someone said this looked and felt like a "tv movie"-- the only difference being, the excessive graphic violence, nudity & sex.
***WARNING SPOILERS*** Mike Hammer, Armand Assante, taking time off from his grueling and back breaking job as a divorce investigator to find who's responsible for the murder of a Vietnam army buddy of his Jack Williams, Frederic Downs, and bring him or they to justice; Mike Hammer-style.Jack a private investigator who lost an arm in Vietnam seemed to be on to something when he was murdered.
Going to a Manhattan sex clinic where Jack was a patient in Hammer finds the clinic manager Dr. Bennett, Barbara Carrera, anything but helpful.
It's then that Mike figures that Jack was undercover there as a patient and uncovered something that cost him his life, but what was it?It later turns out that the sex clinic is a front for a rouge element of the CIA thats working together with the New York Mafia smuggling weapons and at the same time using the patients in the clinic with sever mental problems as programed assassins.
Having them go out and murder those who are on to the clinics real purpose and at the same time having those killings written off as simple sex-related crimes by the police.
Hammer does this in a one man shoot-out at their secret headquarters where he finishes off both mob boss Charles Kelecki, Alan King, and his gang of CIA/Mafia henchmen.
Mike now has just one loose end to tie up to finally close the case on the death of his friend Jack and he'll do it with a smile a kiss and a gun.
Armand Assante is very good as the brutal, but at the same time added a lot of humor in his role, private eye Mike Hammer.
His actions at Dr. Bennetts office and her sex clinic run mansion in suburbia were hilarious and Barbara Carrera was both sexy and deadly as the dragon-like lady Charlotte Bennett.
Carrera together with Assante had the most super charged sex scene in the film that made all the orgy sequences in the movie pail in comparison.Besides both Alan King and Barry Snider being in roles as the mob boss and rouge CIA operation chief Paul Sorvino was in the movie as Mike's friend in the NYPD Det. Chambers.
The scene where Armand Assante shoves the bad guy's face onto the hot griddle ranks right up with the dentist "Is it safe?" scene in Marathon Man. It is unique, and it makes you cringe any time you think of this movie.The mark of a true "tough" guy is that he will stop at nothing to achieve his goal.
Armand Assante's Mike Hammer is one of the best portrayals in that regard..
There is a reason this film is hardly ever mentioned today: it's a completely average and forgettable actioner that looks and sounds like a TV-movie (spiced-up with a little nudity and some gratuitous sleaze).
Having not read a Mickey Spillane book so far, I can not estimate how accurate Armand Assante's interpretation of Mike Hammer is, but his performance seems acceptable.
Less acceptable is Barbara Carrera, who has one facial expression throughout the film; at least she has a nude scene, which explains her casting.
In fact, I don't think I've ever seen Mike Hammer-based movies before.
But holy cow, this movie was just absolute crap.Mike Hammer's friend, Jack, a one-armed man, is murdered.
As Mike Hammer, Armande Assante, hardly seemed even bemused by the government/military corruption behind the murder.
Neither was I given, the ridiculously mounting body count--both in terms of murders and the sex scenes until reaching an even more ridiculous ending.I wouldn't recommend this movie to people interested in a good murder mystery.
Although, I don't know how Mike Hammer fans would react to this movie, or whether they'd want to watch more Mike Hammer in action..
Author Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled crime novels might have seriously benefited from the new permissiveness of '70s and '80s Hollywood...but it turns out the filmmakers here weren't interested in doing anything creative with all the old clichés, and so we have Spillane's detective Mike Hammer making love to a sex therapist with saxophones blaring in the background.
Hammer, whose New York office is across the street from the Pussycat Theatre (!), assigns himself to the murder case of his one-armed war buddy, with a dirty police chief, the C.I.A., and a sex clinic at the heart of the mystery.
As Hammer, American-born Armand Assante is completely miscast.
Assante isn't the mischievous or lascivious sort, and so when naked sex clinic bunnies pounce on him, his shooing them away seems more awkward and unrealistic than how the old-school private eyes used to handle the broads (either by getting rough or by taking care of their business off-screen).
Barbara Carrera (as the operator of the sex clinic) is used only for her slim, exotic body and, though she's a stunning nude, it's an insult to any professional actor to be cast on the merits of their genitalia.
I like this slightly over the top interpretation of Mike Hammer, especially after viewing all the previous watered down versions.I, The Jury (1982) Directed by Richard T.
Heffron, starring Armand Assante, as Mike Hammer, Barbara Carreram as Dr. Charlotte Bennett, Laurene Landon as Velda, Alan King as Charles Kalecki, Geoffrey Lewis as Joe Buttler, and Paul Sorvino as Det. Pat Chambers.I first saw this probably sometime in the late 80's once, had nothing to compare it to, and barely remembered it so it was a delight to get to view this the other day, especially since I've recently been revisiting Spillane and the films based on his novels.It took 30 some odd years for a film to really do full justice to the zeitgeist of a Mickey Spillane novel.
The original "I, The Jury" (1953) was DOA having non presence Biff Eliot in the title role, but at least the babes were "hammertomically" correct , "My Gun is Quick" (1957) starring Robert Bray as had the right caliber of women, but had the action not in NYC, but in some seaside resort and Hammer was running around with a pop gun not his trademark .45 Colt Automatic.
At least it had the babes.But WOW!, right from the opening credits of I, The Jury (1982) you know you are in Mike Hammer land with the emphasis on women and the Colt .45 automatic, Broads & Bullets, Girls and Guns (both kinds).
If not, it predates that style by 10 years.This version has Hammer's office located above Times Square, set in the post Vietnam 80's.
Next shot has Hammer screwing the clients wife while fielding a call from him, the conversation is humorous along the lines of , "yea I'm right on top of her", and "yea, don't worry, I'm very familiar with all her moves".Hammer's one armed war buddy Jack takes a slug in the guts and dies crawling across his living room, notified of his death Hammer (like a licensed rogue cop with full access to NYPD info) acts like bull in a china shop and the action (along with the catchy and wonderfully complementary score) never quits that is unless a broad drifts into range, and a bevy of lovelies do so.In this version Velda who in the novels was also a licensed detective holds her own doing double duty as a competent secretary/associate, and quasi love interest, she shows flashes of jealousy when Mike returns to the office disheveled and bruised from his escapades.All the actors put in decent performances, I just wish Geoffrey Lewis had a bigger part, my only quibble.What's not to like.Barely Neo Noir if that.
The one noir lit sequence that I do remember was when Hammer goes to pay respects to Jack's wife.
Most of the film is too brightly lit.No first person narrative.And well, this version deviates a bit from the novel, i.e., using a surrogate serial killer in place of Kaleki's henchman to the detriment of the novel's excellent Bellamy Twins sequences, the substitution of the sex clinic for the whorehouse, and bringing an ex-CIA paranoid operative "house as fortress" character into the story.Armand Assante as Hammer hews closer to Ralph Meeker looks than what you picture Mike Hammer should look like (for me that would have been the great Charles McGraw), but he has the machismo and misogynistic qualities right, lol .The cinematography is adequate, very pedestrian, nothing stylistic.Setting the story in the post Vietnam 1980's takes away the dirtier, grittier, sleazier, New York of the late Forties to early Sixties.
Minor quibbles.Still excellent film 8.5/10,some funny bits, almost the perfect Hammer with an excellent score.The only way to improve would be a Sin City type treatment keeping the machismo and misogynistic qualities this film has with the dirtier, grittier, sleazier, New York of the late Forties to early Sixties..
Armand Assante in the role of Mike Hammer.
I've been watching Armand Assante since he was one of the Mike Powers on The Doctors some 37 years ago, and in all that time, I've never once thought of him as Mike Hammer.
I still don't.In I, the Jury, Hammer goes to work on a different kind of case as he tries to find the killer of Jack Williams, a man who served with him in Vietnam and, while retrieving Mike's helmet, lost his arm.
After consulting Jack's widow, Mike finds out they went to sex therapy at a clinic, so he starts there.
This winds up involving Mike with the CIA, a mental patient, bad cops, and a rogue Army officer.Lots of violence and nudity and in the end for me anyway, not worth it.
Assante does as good a job as he can, but he's no Mike Hammer.
I did absolutely love seeing the New York where I lived - the Times Square smut, Colony Records, the Broadway/7th Aveue area, great fun.Not really my type of thing.
"I The Jury" delivers about what you would expect from a 1980s action film.
There are strong sexy scenes with Assante and Barbara Carrera.
How can you not like a booby trap place like the one Mike Hammer drives trough with Alan King being 12 years old.
After hearing about this Neo-Noir for a number of years,I was pleased to get hold of a rare UK Pre-Cert Video of the title.Once the Video arrived,I decided to search around for info about the movie,and I was disappointed to discover that 5 minutes had been cut from the UK release of the film.With recently having picked up auteur film maker Larry Cohen's gritty Blaxploitation flick Black Caesar,I decided to search around for more title which he has been involved in.Along with discovering that Cohen had written the screenplay,I was thrilled to discover that Fox Archives has recently put out an uncut version of the film,which led to me getting ready to finally judge the film.The plot:Working for years with fellow cop Jack Williams,Mike Hammer is horrified to find that Williams has been brutally killed.Wanting to go after Williams killer,Hammer is surprised to find his fellow officers giving him "warnings" about looking into things that are best left hidden.
Originally hired to direct until he got sacked due to going $100,000 over budget in the first week of filming,the screenplay by Larry Cohen places this adaptation of Mickey Spillane at the cross roads between the sun-set Neo-Noir and the steamy Erotic Thriller.Sending Hammer off to follow in the footsteps of his former partner,Cohen hammers Hammer into a decaying Neo-Noir world which is kept hidden by an alluring shell,which contains sex therapists secretly recording their clients deepest desires,and cops trying to put all their dirty money links onto a serial killer.Made before the sub- genre would hit the mainstream,Cohen ties the Neo-Noir with a wonderfully deranged Erotic Thriller edge,as a sadistic killer with "mummy issues" makes his victims look like mannequins,whilst Hammer uncovers the "sex therapy" to be a fashion house-style mansion,packed with alluring,but deadly femme fatales.Rushed into the movie after Cohen was given the boot,director Richard T.
Heffron & cinematographer Andrew Laszlo (who also worked on the first Rambo movie in the same year) give the film a stylish,rough and tumble Neo-Noir appearance.Filmed on location,Heffron and Laszlo,scan the burnt-out streets with excellent whip-pans and tracking shots which inject the title with a menacing atmosphere,as Hammer and the mysterious killer close in on each other.Picking up on the genre-crossing mood of Cohen's screenplay,Heffron brilliantly mixes Hammer's gritty Neo-Noir beat with ravishing naked girls and a psycho sexual killer.Before closing the case on a brittle Noir note,Heffron slams Hammer into '80s Action,thanks to Hammer having to take control of the law by taking on the gangs of dirty cops,which leads to the dark underbelly of the city being ripped across the screen,as Mike Hammer declares himself the jury..
At the end of the novel, Mike Hammer's tough-as-nails private investigator enfolds a beautiful woman in his arms.
Mike's old friend is murdered and this provides Mike with the revenge motive that propels him through the rest of the story, which has some sort of sex institute operating as a brainwashing tool of the CIA for the purpose of creating sex fiends who murder the agency's enemies and make it look like the work of a sex fiend which, in a way, it is.
Shooting her was a mortal sin and Mike Hammer's soul should roast in hell.
De gustibus non disputandum est.Another is that Mike Hammer, incarnated here by Armand Assante, is the luckiest man alive.
She's played by Laurene Landon, who is a paragon of beauty but who can't act, not that it matters.Many of the action scenes, and they are here in abundance, are in the slow motion that was fashionable at the time.