House of Hammer

2022 - 9 - 2

'House of Hammer' review: Discovery+ series tries to connect Armie ... (CNN)

Although devoted to Armie Hammer and his family, the title "House of Hammer" evokes thoughts of British horror films released under the Hammer label from ...

While questions surrounding Armie Hammer remain understandable sources of media fascination and attention, the extent to which those issues can be traced to his family history serves as a trickier proposition. Specifically, there's a case to be made that Hammer family members have used their wealth, and the political power associated with it, to avoid consequences. Casey Hammer thus becomes a centerpiece of the docuseries, having written a book, "Surviving My Birthright," alleging abusive or unsavory behavior associated with men in her family. A spokesman for the LA County District Attorney's Office told CNN Thursday that the case remains under investigation. Directors Elli Hakami and Julian P. , after a woman accused him of rape.

How 'House of Hammer' documentary angered Armie Hammer ... (Los Angeles Times)

Elli Hakami and Julian Hobbs began 'House of Hammer' soon after LAPD began investigating the actor. The accuser who started it all rejects the doc.

But were the protocols that are set out in BDSM being used in a way to have a healthy, consensual relationship, or were they being manipulated to put somebody in a situation that was abusive and hurtful? But all that was a tactic he used to seal off crimes and misdemeanors both in the boardroom and in the bedroom. You look at the type of characters he plays in “The Social Network” and “Call Me By Your Name” ... The people who ultimately are in the film are the ones who legitimately have a story to tell. He had a completely self-mythologized persona that he was a great diplomat, he was a great entrepreneur, he gave away thousands of dollars, he had a great art collection. And what you see in our film is even though Effie wasn’t there in person being interviewed, she’s clearly posited in the film as the match that lit the fire. And we recognized that they were in a place where they were ready to share their stories in a way that was going to be empowering and not regressive to them. Effie did, however, provide a statement to The Times about “House of Hammer.” “The way they’ve been exploiting my trauma is disgusting,” she said. Vucekovich — the only subject to appear in the Discovery+ series who had a physical relationship with Hammer — declined to reveal the extent of Hammer’s alleged misconduct on camera. Despite the fact that she did not participate in “House of Hammer,” though, Effie’s experience is detailed thoroughly in the series. Effie told The Times that she declined, responding, in part: “It is extremely inappropriate of you to exploit such a tragic, vulnerable time in many people’s lives, with no regard whatsoever for our healing process and privacy.” Hammer’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, denied Effie’s claims and said his client’s interactions with her “and every other sexual partner of his for that matter” were “completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory.” (Brettler did not respond to The Times’ request for comment on the docuseries.)

Everything to Know About the Explosive Armie Hammer Docuseries ... (TIME)

House of Hammer” is a dizzying new docuseries centered around actor Armie Hammer and the sprawling history behind his family. Here's what to know.

[We Just Got the Best Snapshot Yet of How Much Progress Students Lost in the Pandemic.](https://time.com/6210490/pandemic-learning-loss-naep/?utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=20220902)The Results Are Staggering [Jackson, Mississippi Has No Safe Tap Water for the Foreseeable Future.](https://time.com/6209710/jackson-mississippi-water-crisis/?utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=20220902)It's a Crisis Decades in the Making In the docuseries, Joseph Finder of the Harvard Russian Research Center says that the Russians funneled money through the Hammer family to fund the Communist party to “steal technology and trade secrets from the United States.” Armie has not made any statements regarding the docuseries, but he did respond via a lawyer to the allegations made by the women in January 2021. “Certainly behind the Hammer family, there were a great number of great crimes.” Casey says that Michael, Armie’s father, made his feelings about Casey airing out the family’s dirty laundry quite clear in a private letter to her. The farthest back the Hammer family timeline goes in the docuseries is to Armie’s great-great-grandfather, Julius Hammer. Casey, then a teen, didn’t visit her father for two years until her mom finally allowed her to, and she found herself in the middle of one of his lavish parties filled with cocaine, alcohol, and a number of young women—as young as 16 or 17, Casey says. Following that movie, Hammer took starring roles in [The Man from U.N.C.L.E.](https://time.com/3995795/guy-ritchies-rules-for-reimagining-spy-flicks/) and Luca Guadagnino’s [Call Me By Your Name](https://time.com/5042707/call-me-by-your-name-shape-of-water-fearlessly-display-love/), opposite [Timotheé Chalamet](https://time.com/6103203/timothee-chalamet-profile/), with many of his roles fitting into his pretty rich-boy persona. But I’m here to say, my family is real and it’s a million times worse.” In the three episodes, Hammer’s ex Courtney Vucekovich details her experience with him in detail for the first time; Casey Hammer unearths the misdeeds the men in her family allegedly attempted to bury; and the Hammer web is untangled in great detail. The documentary purports that Hammer shared his fantasies and coerced women into uncomfortable situations in which they felt they could not say no. [Discovery+](https://time.com/6203940/hbo-max-streaming-wars-future/) and counts among its producers Armie’s aunt Casey Hammer, seeks to “reveal the dark, twisted secrets of the Hammer family.” As Casey Hammer tells TIME, “With [Succession](https://time.com/6127997/succession-season-3-finale-what-happens-next/), people can say, ‘Oh my god, it’s such a powerful series and the acting is fabulous,’ but it’s all made up. Instead of telling the story chronologically, the series jumps between decades and the different men of the Hammer family, attempting to connect it back to Armie, though not always seamlessly or smoothly.

Armie Hammer's sordid family drama is center stage in 'House of ... (The Washington Post)

"House of Hammer" details recent criminal allegations against actor Armie Hammer, as well as the history of the embattled men in his mega-wealthy family.

As a young man, he worked for Occidental Petroleum, and after Armand died in 1990, Casey tells the documentarians that Michael entered Armand’s home before his body was even taken away to remove several cars’ worth of At Armand’s funeral, Michael’s father-in-law father declared that Armand became a Christian on his deathbed, despite the funeral being facilitated by Jewish rabbis; Michael and his then-wife Dru (Armie’s mother) donated much of the $40 million they inherited from Armand to Christian groups, including Jews for Jesus and Italy for Christ. Joseph Finder of the Harvard Russian Research Center explains in the docuseries that the CIA concluded that Armand Hammer was brought into the fold, too; Armand was used to collect information for the KGB and therefore was considered to be an agent of the Soviet Union. He named his son Armand, born in 1898, for the symbol of the Communist Party in Russia (“arm and hammer”). He often lounged around in luxury pajamas, earning the nickname “the Hugh Hefner of Pacific Palisades,” and allegedly sometimes helped his father, Armand, bug telephones. [Armand](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/12/27/armand-hammers-afterlife/d7b7a47b-d486-4ea9-b151-fb1278e97307/?itid=lk_inline_manual_19), Armie’s great-grandfather, later became a mega-wealthy oil tycoon — and, according to the docuseries, was known to be abusive toward his wives and mistresses, involved in corruption schemes and disturbingly ruthless with his business interests. When Frances discovered the affair and told her husband to get rid of Kaufman, Armand ordered Kaufman to change her name to Hilary Gibson and dye her hair platinum blond. “House of Hammer,” a three-part docuseries that premiered Friday on Discovery Plus, starts with the Armie Hammer storyline, then climbs up five generations of his family tree. But a new documentary digs in to find that the allegations against Hammer are much broader and more disturbing — and concludes that they are part of a dark family tradition. Courtney Vucekovich, a Dallas business owner and a former girlfriend of Armie’s, alleges on-screen that he tied her up with ropes with only her vague consent, disregarding the common BDSM rule requiring consistent, reaffirmed mutual consent. For decades, it argues, the men of the mega-wealthy Hammer dynasty have been up to no good — living lawlessly and greedily, and harming others. [that went public](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/03/the-fall-of-armie-hammer-a-family-saga-of-sex-money-drugs-and-betrayal) in early 2021 may have seemed to be about some creepy text messages, a rope fetish and something about cannibalism.

'House of Hammer' Filmmakers Want Viewers to Understand ... (Variety)

The filmmakers behind "House of Hammer" speak to Variety about the docuseries that digs into allegations against Armie Hammer and the twisted Hammer family ...

Armie Hammer Accuser Disgusted With 'House of Hammer ... (TV Insider)

At the time, Effie accused Hammer of violently raping her before sharing countless screenshots of conversations with Hammer over the course of their ...

'House of Hammer' is a damning account of a dynasty built on fraud ... (Mic)

This three-part doc shows that the allegations of sexual assault against Armie Hammer stem from a family history of invincibility through privilege.

In one of the most recent Armie presented himself to Vucekovich, to all his girlfriends, and to us, the audience in the Pop Culture Thunderdome, as someone embarrassed of his fortune and fame and the sort of nefarious aura of being raised in the Cayman Islands. He was part of a storied American tradition: A rich, ancient man with a big appetite but no real interest in the taste of food. The series shows the family’s near century-long pattern of intimidation to get what it wants, from an interpersonal level to blackmailing politicians with secret microphones installed in cufflinks. Michael eventually starts dating the daughter of a wealthy religious family from Tulsa, none of the Hammers think it will last, but Armand encourages it because this was the appropriate wife of American Royalty. At the very beginning of his relationship with Julia Morrison, he applauded her Instagram story about “eating the rich.” ‘(The Winklevoss twins) are millionaires, who is better than that?’” In Social Network he played the striving heirs of Ivy League aristocracy — their mix of Grand Ambition and incompetence. The show is about consumption and authority, the fantasies and obsessions of people who have been so rich for so long and so insulated from any real consequence that these things do not seem strange to them or even dangerous but like a twisted, exciting sort of mythology. [trailer](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=house+of+hammer+trailer) packaged the series mostly as a chilling tell-all with some of the women who have recently accused Armie of sexual assault. They set up a projector screen in the yard and watched ET. By the mid-1980s the price of oil has plummeted, and in an attempt to boost its waning profits, Occidental decides to keep pumping oil from the ocean floor, even through the construction. Prince Charles rushes to his aid in a big spectacle, telling the president he can’t blame himself for the catastrophe.