''Mickey One'' is a 1965 American

neo noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...

crime film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...

starring

Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has received an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. He also received the Irving G. Thalberg Memor ...

and directed by

Arthur Penn Arthur Hiller Penn (September 27, 1922 – September 28, 2010) was an American filmmaker, theatre director, and producer. He was a three-time Academy Award nominee for Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director, and a Tony Awards, Tony Awa ...

from a script by Alan Surgal.

Plot

After incurring the wrath of the

Mafia "Mafia", as an informal or general term, is often used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the Sicilian Mafia, original Mafia in Sicily, to the Italian-American Mafia, or to other Organized crime in Italy, organiz ...

, a stand-up comic (

) flees

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

for

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. He steals a

Social Security card Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives fro ...

from a homeless man named Miklos Wunejeva. He uses the card to get a job, under the name Mickey One, hauling garbage for a seedy diner. 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. However, he is wary of becoming successful and 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" Ava ...

). 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-like creation, a deliberately self-destructive machine called "Yes," an homage to the sculptor

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century.Chilvers, Ian; Gl ...

Cast

Release and reception

Penn received a nomination for a

Golden Lion The Golden Lion () 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 regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes. In 1970, a ...

at the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

. However, critical reaction was mostly negative.

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though some ...

in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' praised the visual style but claimed that the film was "pretentious and monotonous." ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' 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 Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen, accolade ...

Interiors ''Interiors'' is a 1978 American drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, and Sam Waterston. Allen's first ...

, 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'' in 1967. Like several of Penn's later films, it draws upon the style and legacy of the

French New Wave The New Wave (, ), also called the French New Wave, is a French European art cinema, art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentat ...

to construct an allegory of capitalism, and has also been read in reference to

McCarthyism McCarthyism is a political practice defined by the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a Fear mongering, campaign spreading fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage i ...

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 and performed by tenor saxophonist

Stan Getz Stan Getz (born Stanley Gayetski; 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 wis ...

. 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 Hunga ...

to bossa nova, reteamed

with arranger Eddie Sauter, following their album ''

Focus Focus (: foci or focuses) may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in East Australia Film *Focus (2001 film), ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel *Focus (2015 ...

''''Variety'', January 1, 1965.
/ref> (1961).

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 English-language crime drama films