Editing Kiss Me Deadly (section)

===Differences from the novel===
''Kiss Me Deadly'' departs from other Mike Hammer films in that Hammer never carries a gun. This is explained when Lt. Murphy tells Hammer his PI license and gun permit have been revoked. Although he is held at gunpoint, pistol whipped, and even shot, he complies with the gun ban, relying only on his fists to hammer people into submission or worse. The screenplay also departs from Spillane's novel, replacing the mafia conspiracy at the center of the novel with an apparent case of espionage and a mysterious suitcase serving as the film's [[MacGuffin]]. The film further departs from the book by portraying Hammer not so much as a sleuth of the [[hardboiled]] school than as a sleazy, narcissistic bully, perhaps the darkest private detective in film noir.<ref name="Grdn"/>

Much to the derision of the local police, Hammer makes his living mostly by blackmailing adulterers, he or his secretary sometimes seducing and entrapping the targets themselves, a practice perhaps made even worse because Hammer seems to exploit the genuine affection that Velda feels for him to get her participation. He readily resorts to violence, whether he's defending himself against the thugs Evello sends to kill him, breaking a potential informant's treasured record to get him to talk,or roughing up a coroner who has the temerity to demand payment in return for a key that Christina had apparently swallowed before her death. Bezzerides wrote of the script: "I wrote it fast because I had contempt for it... I tell you Spillane didn't like what I did with his book. I ran into him at a restaurant and, boy, he didn't like me".<ref>Bergan, Ronald ''The Guardian'', Obituary, "A.I. Bezzerides: Screenwriter victim of the Hollywood blacklist, he is renowned for three classic American film noirs," February 6, 2007.</ref>