Mickey One

Took a couple of viewings to feel comfortable about this mid 60's predecessor to the days ahead of psychedelic imagery. But alas, it finally sunk in. Penn & Co. used a ton of artistic metaphors and graphic symbolism to buttress this supposedly straightforward plot theme. Basically, it's about a paranoid comedian (Beatty) on the run from the mob in Detroit who ends up several stops later in the heart of Chi-town. Probably the accent is on paranoid rather than comedian because he's not terribly funny, especially by today's standards. Regardless, he goes to a few bars to check out other comics and the bug bites him again and he is subsequently coaxed into doing his stand-up routine again. Beatty's erratic, hyped-up demeanor grated on me from time to time, but I have to assume that Mr. Penn had intended his lead character to exhibit these manic symptoms to blend in with the madcap sequences of events that were taking place during the course of the film.

But his journey is fraught with fear of getting discovered by the mob boys. When he first arrives in Chicago, he wanders into a scrap yard where heavy machinery smash up and compact old autos, apparently a metaphor by Penn to parallel Beatty's fear of getting smashed up and compacted by the mob! He then wanders into a salvation type mission where he encounters a stuttering evangelist who quotes Scripture, sounding like a vocal fusion of Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. This minute or so sequence is far funnier than Beatty's "Mort Sahl-ish" dry-witted one-liners.

He meets up with a loving and sympathetic female (A. Stewart) who tries her best to keep him from teetering into the brink. On one of their walks through the city, they encounter a "mute" madcap character (K.Fujiwara) who has put together a surrealistic concoction of a Spike Jones type amalgamation of horns, pianos, drums noises, et al. It eventually blows up on him, whereupon the Fire Dept. comes to extinguish the resulting conflagration. All his work seems lost at that point except for one small gadget which still manages to work. The "mute" is delighted in saving that last gadget and is applauded by Beatty and his girl. I interpreted that to be a metaphor for Beatty's condition and how he should react to it: Whatever can happen will happen and not to worry because you never know what the end result may be, especially if you keep plugging away! Beatty then tries to find the mob guys who want him, gets his butt whooped in the process, and then finally goes on stage, bandages and all, and basically says, "I ain't scared any more, so if you want me here I am!", the final redemptive moment in the film. The ensuing fadeout is appropriately poignant.

To omit praising the likes of Hurd Hatfield, Jeff Corey, Franchot Tone, Teddy Hart, and the aforementioned Alexandra Stewart would be remiss. Their contributions were very interesting, at minimum. However, the main kudos go to Beatty, Penn and, last but not least, to Stan Getz for his masterful tenor sax interpretations. Someone needs to DVD (new verb?) this important period piece. Should be required viewing for young film makers, even if they don't like the movie!

As I recall, the movie got a lot of buzz on first release. After all, 1965 was decades into Hollywood's fixation on the commercially conventional, with linear narratives, explicit story lines, and happy endings with no loose threads. In short, just the kind of traditional story-telling that sent audiences home happy, reassured, and ready for more. So it's not surprising that many folks, of perhaps a more imaginative bent, were ready for something different. After all, art-house theatres were taking off with the likes of Ingmar Bergmann and the French New Wave. So along comes a movie like Mickey One with a very different Hollywood slant, and, by golly, it gets talked about, maybe more than it should have.

Seeing the concoction today, it strikes me as mainly a mess, perhaps more self-indulgent than honorable, but a mess in either case. Of course, it's harder to specify standards to judge arty films by than it is conventional films. After all, a critic's misgiving may amount more to critical oversight than to an absence of subtle profundity. I'll take that risk in saying that whatever the symbolism of Mickey's predicament, it's hard to care. And that's mainly because whatever the intended symbolism, it's too unstructured to invite interpretive inquiry. To me the movie's more a series of occasionally jarring visual effects than anything invitingly profound. It certainly doesn't help that actor Beatty is simply too callow to give Mickey's complex character a persuasive purchase. And since he's in about every scene, we're continually burdened with seeing the actor instead of the character.

Some folks look for an existential reading of whatever subtext there is (my impression is something about mysteries of original sin and freeing oneself from the overhang). So for those interested in existential themes, let me recommend Monte Hellman's 1965 Western, The Shooting. In my book, Hellman shows how a profound subtext can be combined with conventional story-telling, and in a way that may not be flashy, but is at least involving. All in all, it's no mystery to me why Mickey One, Two. or whatever has since drifted into obscurity, and in all likelihood, will stay there.

This gritty surreal stumble through 1965 America is uncompromisingly downbeat. Like a last visit to the now absent locales featured in Diane Arbus photographs, it repels and attracts almost like a roadside museum of oddities. Apparently Lenny Bruce and Diane Arbus shared a passion for New York's infamous Hubert's Flea Circus and a Times Square movie theater that ran Todd Browning's "Freaks". This film captures that strange lost in the fun house feel also seen in Orson Welles' "Lady from Shanghai" climax . To add contrast Director Arthur Penn also interjects dreamy Playboy magazine moments between Warren Beatty and 1966 Playmate of the Year Donna Loren at a posh hotel. Stan Getz silky saxophone on the sound track provides Mickey One's one discernible connective thread. It dramatizes the observation that, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you". Visually the film was so modern that audiences took at least 20-years to catch up to it.

Like I knew this was gonna be a long night when I heard the west coast jazz opening. Penn obviously confused film making with Calvin Klein commercials. So, like Warren's in a tough spot--tough because he doesn't know what he did wrong--shades of Huntz hall being smacked in the head by Leo Gorcey--"Wha'd I do? Wha'd I do?" This causes the music to get louder and the camera to move jerkily, like my uncle's home movies. The puppet actors are forced to give us slabs of bad Brando, letting us know that ultimately the whole film is a waste of time. If I wanted to show angst and psychosis, I'd have taken camera and crew to the Motor Vehicle Bureau in Yonkers, and just alternated between the waiting dead, the agonizing number change on the electronic board and the sleepy indifference of the clerks. I wouldn't need no stinking music to scare or confuse. A half hour would be enough to send the audience screaming into the streets.

I had graduated Art School five years before this film was made, and agonized over predictable, gritty shots of litter and urban decay. It was "deja vu all over again!" There's a Ray Bradbury short story about a tourist in Mexico who sees an "interesting" crack in a wall of a house and asks the dweller to pose for a shot beside the crack...which he does by urinating.! "Mickey One" had a similar effect on me.

Mickey One is a strange film about a man on the run and living on the edge. Warren Beatty takes this new name after his business manager Franchot Tone tells him the mob has a contract on his life. At first Beatty can't figure it out. But it gradually dawns on him that he's been living it up high on the hog with the mob's money, $20,000.00 dollars of it. When Tone informs him of the tab, Beatty decides to run.

He lives for years in obscurity, but he's a performer with a compulsive need for an audience. Soon he's working at a swank joint in Chicago owned by Hurd Hatfield and Jeff Corey. But too much attention could bring him to the attention of people who don't forget.

Mickey One is a strange almost Kafkaesque type movie. It comes considerably short of being a classic. Still it's an interesting work and it has its following.

One other role of note is that of comedian Teddy Hart who plays Beatty's new found agent in Chicago. Hart was the brother of lyricist Larry Hart had a good career as a second banana comic. He's the short fellow with the rubbery expressive face.

Mickey One doesn't make it to the top tier, still it's an interesting work.