Review #1,426: 'Mickey One' (1965)

Arthur Penn's Mickey One is a great example of a film that could have made real waves had it arrived at the right time and found the right audience. Sadly, audiences were perhaps unprepared for this radical new approach to film-making, at least for an American studio, as the film's free-wheeling, care-free attitude and style, heavily influenced by the burgeoning French New Wave in Europe, was a turn-off for critics. Despite attracting attention at the Venice Film Festival, Mickey One bombed hard at the box-office, and has faded into obscurity ever since. Had it arrived a few years later, when Hollywood really started to embrace new ideas and the visions of filmmakers, it may now be more highly regarded, although with its offbeat, freestyle-jazz swagger, Mickey One would still infuriate as much as it would inspire.

Mickey One (Warren Beatty) is a handsome, successful stand-up comic in Detroit enjoying a hedonistic life of alcohol, women and gambling. When a night of over-indulgence causes him to lose a wad of cash at the craps table, he flees the city for Chicago, knowing that the Mafia will be after his head for failing to pay his debts. He lays low, renting a tiny apartment and taking a job washing dishes at a restaurant. Unsatisfied with his situation, Mickey can't resist the lure of the clubs, and is soon in the front row heckling a fellow comic and stealing his laughs. He gets himself an agent and eventually returns to the stage, taking lowly gigs as he remains wary of the target on his back. Mickey can sing, play piano, and spit jokes at the drop of a hat, so it isn't long until he lands a spot at an upscale club called Xanadu. With his paranoia raging, Mickey struggles to decide whether or not to take the job, and the predicament isn't helped by the arrival of a beautiful, yet unwanted flatmate named Jenny (Alexandra Stewart).

Mickey One is a very odd film indeed. Scattershot in style and heavy on visual metaphors, it dazzles and demands your attention, but is about as infuriating as being forced to spend the night in a jazz club when you hate jazz. It introduces Mickey - which isn't even his real name - via a dizzying montage before throwing him out in the cold as he looks to duck any gangsters coming his way. We barely get to know him before being pulled along on his existential journey of self-discovery, and Penn is happy to grind the story to a halt in favour of a long conversation in a room (a la A bout de souffle). Still, its difficult to resist being swept along in its uncompromising rhythm and savouring some of the truly bizarre imagery on show. The sight of people trampolining in front of a bridge comes out of nowhere, as does a demonstration by a man credited as 'The Artist' (played by Kamatari Fujiwara), which involves a huge, self-destructive machine called Yes that quickly catches fire. I have no idea what it all means, but it's delightfully unique. And that about sums up Mickey One as a whole: you probably won't know what the hell just happened, but you'll have a memorable time.


Directed by: Arthur Penn
Starring: Warren Beatty, Alexandra Stewart, Hurd Hatfield, Franchot Tone, Teddy Hart, Jeff Corey
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,247: 'Night Moves' (1975)

Cited by many critics as one of the best and most important American movies of the 1970s, Arthur Penn's Night Moves hasn't stood the test of time in terms of popularity. The legacy of the nouvelle vague in France had inspired a whole generation of American film-makers to try new things, and to subvert genres as much as the studios would allow them. This led to a re-emergence of the film noir, a genre stuck very much in the 1940s and 50s. With its chain-smoking, loose-skinned leading men and devilish, glamorous ladies, its tough demeanour is very much a product of the time. A couple of decades later, and filmmakers such as Roman Polanski, with Chinatown, and Robert Altman, with The Long Goodbye, found new ways to explore this dark world and its shady characters, and are widely remembered for it. But no film has been as successful at cutting to the heart of what drives these self-loathing deadbeats and the manipulating bombshells distracting them as Arthur Penn's Night Moves.

Private investigator and former American football star Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) works freelance, preferring to gulp down coffees during long stakeouts on his own time than to be on the payroll of a larger agency. His wife Ellen (Susan Clark) tries to shake him out of his stubborn ways, but he's just an old-fashioned sort of guy. This lone wolf approach is in his blood, as after he turns down Ellen's invitation to the cinema, he monitors the situation anyway, discovering that his wife is having an affair in the process. Meanwhile, former actress Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) hires Harry to track down her missing, promiscuous daughter Delly (Melanie Griffith). A conversation with mechanic Quentin (James Woods) leads Harry to a thrill-seeking movie stuntman, and then to the Florida Keys, where he discovers Delly hiding out with her stepfather Tom Iverson (John Crawford), and a striking woman named Paula (Jennifer Warren).

As a straight-forward detective story, Night Moves will likely divide an audience. With its unhurried approach and eagerness to explore Harry's troubled home-life and self-destructive behaviour, the jarring tones may not suit everybody's tastes. Night Moves is much more about the character than the case he is on. The movie mainly succeeds in this balancing act because of the performance of Gene Hackman, an actor working at the very top of his game. In the 70s, he was part of a group of actors who rebelled against Hollywood gloss, and portrayed real people in real situations. Harry is ultimately a good-hearted guy, tragically failing to see the irony when he demonstrates his knowledge of 'check mate' moves in chess to Paula, with sight of own possible fate in the unravelling mystery. As the plot moves on and Harry finds himself caught up in far more than he had bargained for, the revelations become increasingly confusing. But I didn't care:  It's the kind of convolution warmly embraced by the Coen Brothers in neo-noir The Big Lebowski. It isn't a masterpiece, but Night Moves deserves to be remembered as one of the most important American movies of its decade.


Directed by: Arthur Penn
Starring: Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Edward Binns, John Crawford, Melanie Griffith, James Woods
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie