Mickey One
Encyclopedia
Mickey One is a 1965 surrealistic dramatic film starring Warren Beatty
and directed by Arthur Penn
from a script by Alan Surgal. Its kaleidoscopic camerawork, film noir
atmosphere, lighting and design aspects
, Kafkaesque paranoia
, philosophical themes and Warren Beatty
's performance in the title role turned the film into a cult classic. Penn and Surgal ignored the usual conventions of narrative for a freewheeling approach to their dramatic devices and Chicago
locations.
The film's soundtrack, reverberating with hints of everything from Béla Bartók
to bossa nova, re-teamed Stan Getz
with arranger Eddie Sauter
, following their classic album Focus
.
, a stand-up comic (Warren Beatty
) flees Detroit for Chicago, taking the name Mickey One. Eventually he returns to the stage, 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 gruff voice. Paranoid that the mob has found him, Mickey runs away. He decides to find out who "owns" him and square himself with the mob, but 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 a bunch of 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
-like creation, a deliberately self-destructive machine called "Yes," an hommage to the sculptor Jean Tinguely
.
in the cinematography and editing, Mickey One received a good send-off at the 1965 New York Film Festival
, and Penn received a nomination for a Golden Lion
at the Venice Film Festival
. However, critical reaction was mixed, and distribution was spotty, with the film arriving in some areas at drive-ins rather than first-run theaters, and it quickly vanished. Nevertheless, Beatty and Penn soon teamed again for Bonnie and Clyde
in 1967.
The rediscovery of the film began in 1995 with a booking at San Francisco's Castro Theater and a reevaluation by Peter Stack:
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
and directed by Arthur Penn
Arthur Penn
Arthur Hiller Penn was an American film director and producer with a career as a theater director as well. Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...
from a script by Alan Surgal. Its kaleidoscopic camerawork, film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
atmosphere, lighting and design aspects
Mise en scène
Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction...
, Kafkaesque paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
, philosophical themes and Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
's performance in the title role turned the film into a cult classic. Penn and Surgal ignored the usual conventions of narrative for a freewheeling approach to their dramatic devices and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
locations.
The film's soundtrack, reverberating with hints of everything from Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
to bossa nova, re-teamed Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
with arranger Eddie Sauter
Eddie Sauter
Edward Ernest Sauter was a composer and jazz arranger who achieved renown among musicians during the swing era.-Biography:...
, following their classic album Focus
Focus (jazz album)
Focus is a jazz album recorded in 1961, featuring Stan Getz on tenor saxophone with a string orchestra. The album is a suite which was originally commissioned by Getz from composer and arranger Eddie Sauter...
.
Plot
After incurring the wrath of the MafiaMafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, a stand-up comic (Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
) flees Detroit for Chicago, taking the name Mickey One. Eventually he returns to the stage, 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 gruff voice. Paranoid that the mob has found him, Mickey runs away. He decides to find out who "owns" him and square himself with the mob, but 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 a bunch of 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
Kamatari Fujiwara
Kamatari Fujiwara was a Japanese actor.Born in Tokyo, he was a long-time member of director Akira Kurosawa's stock company, making his first appearance in a Kurosawa film alongside Takashi Shimura in 1952's Ikiru. He continued to appear in Kurosawa's films until his death...
). The Artist eventually unleashes his Rube Goldberg
Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor.He is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complex gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. These devices, now known as Rube Goldberg machines, are similar to...
-like creation, a deliberately self-destructive machine called "Yes," an hommage to the sculptor Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
.
Cast
- Warren BeattyWarren BeattyWarren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
as Mickey One - Alexandra StewartAlexandra StewartAlexandra Stewart is a Canadian actress.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Alexandra Stewart left for Paris, France, in 1958, to study art...
as Jenny - Hurd HatfieldHurd HatfieldWilliam Rukard Hurd Hatfield was an American actor.-Biography:The son of William Henry Hatfield , an attorney who served as deputy attorney general for New York, and his wife, the former Adele Steele, Hatfield was born in New York City, and was educated at Columbia University before travelling to...
as Castle - Franchot ToneFranchot ToneFranchot Tone was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of Mutiny on the Bounty and many other films through the 1960s...
as Rudy Lopp - Teddy Hart as Berson
- Jeff CoreyJeff CoreyJeff Corey was an American stage and screen actor and director who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.-Biography:...
as Fryer - Kamatari FujiwaraKamatari FujiwaraKamatari Fujiwara was a Japanese actor.Born in Tokyo, he was a long-time member of director Akira Kurosawa's stock company, making his first appearance in a Kurosawa film alongside Takashi Shimura in 1952's Ikiru. He continued to appear in Kurosawa's films until his death...
as The Artist - Donna MichelleDonna MichelleDonna Michelle was the adopted name of Donna M. Ronne, an American model, actress, and photographer. She was Playboy magazine's December 1963 Playmate of the Month and 1964 Playmate of the Year. Her centerfold was by Pompeo Posar and Edmund Leja...
as The Girl - Ralph FoodyRalph FoodyRalph Foody was a character actor. He has several screen credits from the 1980s, but is probably best known for his bit part in Home Alone and its sequel as stereotypical 1930s mobster "Johnny" in its meta-film Angels with Filthy Souls.He was known for his incredible wit and was often referred to...
as Police Captain - Norman Gottschalk as The Evangelist
- Richard Lucas as Employment Agent
- Jack GoodmanJack GoodmanJack Goodman is a Republican member of the Missouri Senate, representing the 29th District since 2005. He is currently the Assistant Majority Floor Leader. Previously he was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives from 2003 through 2005....
as Cafe Manager - Jeri Jensen as Helen
- Charlene Lee as The Singer
Release and rediscovery
As the first major Hollywood studio film to display an extensive influence from the New WaveFrench New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
in the cinematography and editing, Mickey One received a good send-off at the 1965 New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
, and Penn received a nomination for a Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il 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 distinguished prizes...
at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
. However, critical reaction was mixed, and distribution was spotty, with the film arriving in some areas at drive-ins rather than first-run theaters, and it quickly vanished. Nevertheless, Beatty and Penn soon teamed again for Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde (film)
The film was originally offered to François Truffaut, the best-known director of the New Wave movement, who made contributions to the script. He passed on the project to make Fahrenheit 451. The producers approached Jean-Luc Godard next...
in 1967.
The rediscovery of the film began in 1995 with a booking at San Francisco's Castro Theater and a reevaluation by Peter Stack: