''Mickey One'' is a 1965 American
neo noir
Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating s ...
crime film
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
starring
Warren Beatty
Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...
and directed by
Arthur Penn from a script by
Alan Surgal.
Plot
After incurring the wrath of the
Mafia, a stand-up comic (
Warren Beatty
Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...
) flees
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
for
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, taking the name Mickey One (from the ethnic name Miklos Wunejeva on a Social Security card he steals from a homeless man). He uses the card to get a job at a seedy diner hauling garbage. He saves up enough money from his low wages to rent a room at a local flop house and buy himself some new clothes. Eventually he returns to the stage as a stand-up comic, but is wary of becoming successful, afraid that he will attract too much attention. When he gets a booking at the upscale club Xanadu, he finds that his first rehearsal has become a special "audition" for an unseen man with a frightening, gruff voice (
Aram Avakian
Aram A. Avakian (April 23, 1926 – January 17, 1987) was an American film editor and director. His work in the latter role includes ''Jazz on a Summer's Day'' (1959) and the indie film '' End of the Road'' (1970).
Life and work
Aram "Al" Avak ...
). Paranoid that the mob has found him, Mickey runs away. He decides to find out who "owns" him and square himself with the mob. However, he doesn't know what he did to anger them or what his debt is. Searching for a mobster who will talk to him, he gets beaten up by several nightclub doormen. Mickey finally concludes that it's impossible to get away and be safe, so he pulls himself together and does his act anyway.
In traveling about the city, Mickey continually sees a mute mime-like character known only as The Artist (
Kamatari Fujiwara). The Artist eventually unleashes his
Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970), known best as Rube Goldberg, was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor.
Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadge ...
-like creation, a deliberately self-destructive machine called "Yes," an homage to the sculptor
Jean Tinguely.
Cast
Release and reception
Penn received a nomination for a
Golden Lion
The Golden Lion ( it, Leone d'oro) is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguishe ...
at the
Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...
. However, critical reaction was mostly negative.
Bosley Crowther in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' praised the visual style but claimed that the film was "pretentious and monotonous." ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' called the film, "never boring but never very precise, and finally goes to pieces amidst the crash of its own symbols." In 1979,
James Monaco wrote Mickey One 'except for
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
's
Interiors, is the most pretentious film by a major American filmmaker in the last thirty years'.
Beatty and Penn did not get along while making this film. Beatty later recalled, "We had a lot of trouble on that film, because I didn't know what the hell Arthur was trying to do and I tried to find out ... I'm not sure that he knew himself" and added, "To me, the stand-up gags that the guy had to do in ''Mickey One'' were not funny and that was always my complaint with Arthur." Producer Harrison Starr recalled, "Warren and Arthur had go-arounds ... the role was basically a role of an eccentric, a person whose inner demons were reflected in the world he inhabited ... and I think that was difficult for Warren to play." Nevertheless, Beatty and Penn teamed again for ''
Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut (Champion) Barrow (March 24, 1909May 23, 1934) were an American criminal couple who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. The co ...
'' in 1967.
Rediscovery
The rediscovery of the film began in 1995 with a booking at San Francisco's
Castro Theater and a reevaluation by Peter Stack:
Soundtrack
:
The soundtrack was arranged by
Eddie Sauter
Edward Ernest Sauter (December 2, 1914 – April 21, 1981) was a composer and arranger during the swing era.
Biography
Sauter studied music at Columbia University and the Juilliard School. He began as a drummer and then played trumpet profession ...
and performed by tenor saxophonist
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of ...
.
The film's soundtrack, reverberating with hints of everything from
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...
to bossa nova, reteamed
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of ...
with arranger
Eddie Sauter
Edward Ernest Sauter (December 2, 1914 – April 21, 1981) was a composer and arranger during the swing era.
Biography
Sauter studied music at Columbia University and the Juilliard School. He began as a drummer and then played trumpet profession ...
, following their album ''
Focus''
''Variety'', January 1, 1965.
/ref> (1961).
See also
*List of American films of 1965
A list of American films released in 1965.
''The Sound of Music'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
A–D
E–I
J–R
S–Z
See also
* 1965 in the United States
Notes
References
*
External links
*1965 filmsat the Interne ...
*'' Lenny''-1974 film about Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...
similar in content
*French New Wave
French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...
Notes
External links
*
*
*
*
''Village Voice'': "Mickey One at MOMA" by J. Hoberman (April 15, 2008)
{{Arthur Penn
1965 films
American crime drama films
American black-and-white films
Films directed by Arthur Penn
Films set in Chicago
Films shot in Chicago
1965 crime drama films
American neo-noir films
1960s English-language films
1960s American films