Mike Hammer (TV Series)

To Bury a Friend (1958)

Darren McGavin: Mike Hammer

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Mike Hammer : My old neighborhood hadn't changed much since I was a kid. I guess that's because there's a limit to how old and dirty and decrepit any spot on Earth can become. I hadn't been back in a long time and I wouldn't have gone back when I did if it had been anybody else but Mama Dukas who sent for me.

• Lt. Checkers : [discussing Nick Dukas]  The carny people called him a gazoony, if you know what that means.

  Mike Hammer : I know what it means. It means he's no good.

  Lt. Checkers : There's nothing worse than a gazoony.

  Mike Hammer : How about the guy who murders a gazoony?

• Mike Hammer : What do you worry about, Lieutenant?

  Lt. Checkers : Ohh, the weather, my feet, how the White Sox are doin', my wife's arthritis and not having enough men to check out 25 felonies and over a hundred misdeamors that occur in my little district every day.

  [shows mike a sheaf of reports on a clipboard] 

  Lt. Checkers : This is a mighty long list, Mr. Hammer. There just isn't enough room on it for the murder of guys like Nick Dukas.

• Lt. Checkers : Yeah, you private eyes really have it made from what I read in those paperbacks and see in the movies and on the TV.

  Mike Hammer : Yeah, it's a ball, Checkers, a ball... crime, women and song.

• Lt. Checkers : I sure do wish you could stick around in Chicago a little while. I'd kind of like to watch you operate; maybe I could pick up a pointer or two.

  Mike Hammer : Looks like you got all you can do to pick up your feet, Mr. Checkers.

• [Mike picks up Nick's suitcases] 

  Mike Hammer : Ooof! He didn't travel light did he?

  Bonnie Tate : No, he was a regular pack rat.

  [Dakin and Boyd enter the room] 

  Max Dakin : Rat is right.

• Mike Hammer : Who are the gorillas?

  Max Dakin : What have you got in the suitcases?

  Mike Hammer : Bricks! I'm on my way to a hod carriers convention. What's it to ya?

• Max Dakin : Come on - talk!

  Mike Hammer : Hickory, dickory, dock...

  [Dakin punches Mike in the stomach] 

• Mike Hammer : What gives with you, Checkers? Nick Dukas is murdered, a couple of goons use me for a bongo drum and all you do is stand around and make like the moderator of a debating society. Those two punks were after something!

• Mike Hammer : Just how did they know where to find me?

  Lt. Checkers : Well, that's a very good question, Mr. Hammer, but you're sure that this ain't somethin' personal between you and those two hoods?

  Mike Hammer : No. No, but it is now.

• Mike Hammer : I was going back to New York tonight, but now I'm goin' huntin' for those two punks and when I find them, I'm going to make them wish they'd never been born!

  Lt. Checkers : I guess I know how you feel, Mr. Hammer. Well, I'd do the same thing if it were me.

  Mike Hammer : If I were you, Checkers, I'd shoot myself.

• Mike Hammer : Now you listen to me, Max, and hear me good. Killin' you would be like steppin' on a bug. Well, maybe you don't believe that and maybe I'm hopin' you don't so I have an excuse to prove it to ya!

• Lt. Checkers : I sure wish I knew what happened to that currency exchange money after Dukas was killed.

  Mike Hammer : Have you ever considered buying yourself a ouija board?

• Lt. Checkers : But who would believe that I arranged for it to work out that way? Why, everybody knows that a dumb, ordinary cop like me is not smart enough to pull anything like that on a smart, slick, tough private detective like you... now would they, huh?

  Mike Hammer : Yeah. Yeah, that's probably right, Checkers, nobody would have believed it. You're just too ordinary looking and too...

  [Mike hands Checkers the bag with the robbery loot] 

  Mike Hammer : ...dumb.

• [last lines] 

  Lt. Checkers : Well, I'll be seein' you, Mr. Hammer.

  Mike Hammer : Not if I see you first, Checkers.

  Lt. Checkers : [to himself]  Not if you see me...

  [Checkers leaves the shop laughing]