Chicago – The Magnificent 60s

Mickey One (1965) ***

Smorgasbord of paranoia, Kafka and the surreal, set in an American netherworld. Cue trampolines, a mime, what these days we’d call installations, a comic without a decent joke, a wrecker’s yard, organic food, catering kitchens. You could call Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967) a visionary director just for including some of these aspects. Or you could go for another contemporary word: “random.”

We are pretty used to people being on the run be they innocent of the crime of which they are accused or small-time hoods trying to evade punishment. The notion here is of small-time hood Mickey One (Warren Beatty) fleeing Detroit for Chicago but with no idea for what crime, though the list could include gambling debts and stealing a bigger gangster’s moll.

His situation is spelled out often enough in case you’ve not got the picture. “Hiding from you don’t know who for a crime you don’t know you committed,” remarks girlfriend Jenny (Alexandra Hay). In a particularly Kafkaesque moment, Mickey espouses: “The only thing I know is I’m guilty – of not being innocent.”

Smart with the words but not so smart with the actions. Even though he can just about get by as a kitchen wash-up, he gets sucked back into his former profession of stand-up comedian, hardly the most anonymous of jobs. So he is all angst-on-fire when success in some low dive, keeping clients entertained between strippers, attracts interest from a classier joint which naturally sees marketing the new prospect as part of the deal.

Some of this paranoia might just be in his head were it not for being stalked by car-crunching cranes in the wrecker’s yard, spotlights on stage (though you could point out that’s an occupational hazard) and a silent rag-and-bone man.

It says something for the acting of Warren Beatty (Kaleidoscope, 1966) that this is in any way believable. The fast-living lothario of the opening sequence, with gals and booze aplenty, segues into a bum without missing a beat. His paranoia is consistent and he makes some attempt to find out what the heck he has done to end up this way, though it has to be said there’s no actual evidence of pursuit, just the fear of it, and the notion that he owes somebody maybe twenty grand or that the lass tempted into stripping for him was stepping out of line.

*Pretty good plug from a top critic and an arthouse opening – what else could you ask for?*

His breadline living is realistic, too, hitching a ride on a train, bumming food from a mission, sleeping among bags of rubbish, a world where down-and-outs steal the clothes from the back of other vagrants and his job is scraping leftover food from plates in a cafeteria. And there’s always someone at the scam, his landlady dumping another tenant (Jenny) in his tiny apartment.

Maybe less realistic that club owners are lining up to hire him when there’s nary a laugh in his schtick. The biggest joke is in the casting, some kind of infernal joke on audiences to put the likes of the uber-handsome Beatty through mental and physical torture, albeit that he’s perceived as man of abundant talent and collects with ease women willing to put up with the depressive side of his nature.

The movie doesn’t quite fit the Kafka mold because being on stage represents freedom and nobody in Franz’s world ever had a sniff of that. And you wouldn’t call it a thriller either. And if it’s a homage to the French New Wave you’d have to watch a stack of French pictures from this decade to work out what it’s mimicking.

And it’s not like Penn’s work is always on this kind of edge, he’s not the David Lynch of his generation. Every top director is permitted at least one turkey, and this would have been Penn’s except critics in the 1990s started to give it the old reassessment treatment, Penn being a big enough name from his other works to have a stab at how this fits into his repertoire/oeuvre.

So, far from being an intolerable mess. Doesn’t quite ask the big questions Penn hopes it does. More of a curate’s egg of a picture, some interesting ideas, and an excellent performance from Beatty. Alexandra Hay (Only When I Larf, 1968) was part of the French connection, a Canadian model who had hit it big in Paris, with roles in French pictures and an affair with director Louis Malle. But actually she’s good, not the kind of submissive woman Mickey has perhaps been used to, but thoughtful and capable of challenging his illusions.

Screenwriter Alan Surgal was not prolific, this being his only movie.

Robin and the 7 Hoods (1965) ****

I’m still trying to work out why I enjoyed the Rat Pack’s last hurrah so much. Sure, it’s the knockout debut of “My Kind of Town,” the last tune Frank Sinatra performed on the big screen and one that would have epitomised Ol’ Blue Eyes had it not been supplanted a few years later by “My Way.” And Bing Crosby, also in top crooning form, would have stolen the show except for Peter Falk’s gangster and Barbara Rush weaving a seductive web around all the males. But, actually, it’s mostly because this one time, far more than in the three preceding pictures, there’s a match between story and stars, as if at last the whole idea has come together. The gimmick of transplanting the Robin Hood legend to 1920s Prohibition Chicago works a treat, a gentle spoof rather than an awkward one.

The notion that you would bring together three of the greatest singers – Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. – of their generation and deny audiences the chance to hear their voices was anathema to audiences. As if nobody could make up their mind which way a Rat Pack vehicle was headed, Martin and Davis were accorded tunes in Oceans 11 (1960) but the next two pictures, westerns of one kind or another, appeared tuneless. Robin and the 7 Hoods is a proper musical, all the stars sing, some even get to dance, and the story carries a lot more heft than your usual musical, some decent running gags, and an affectionate nod to the old Warner Brothers gangster pictures.

Guy Gisborne (Peter Falk), having taken control of the city by rubbing out his rival, comes up against Robbo (Frank Sinatra) refusing to bow the knee. Naturally, both decide the only solution is to bust up each other’s joints. Even more naturally, this ends in stalemate. Cue the entrance of Marian (Barbara Rush), the dead mob boss’s daughter who wants her father avenged. As a by-product of her involvement, Robbo ends up donating $50,000 to the poor, a good deed turned into public relations bounty by orphanage chief Allen A. Dale (Bing Crosby), reviving the legend of the outlaw who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

Complications arise when Robbo refuses to fall for Marian’s wiles and is framed for the murder of a corrupt Sheriff Glick (Robert Foulk). Marian proves far smarter than her male counterparts and when bribery, seduction and corruption fail she turns to politics.

While Sinatra’s rendition of “My Kind of Town” is the standout, tunesmiths Sammy Cahn and Jimmy van Heusen showcase some terrific numbers, in particular the gospel-style “Mr Booze” performed by Bing Crosby, “Style” involving Sinatra, Martin and Crosby, a Martin solo “Any Man Who Loves His Mother,” Sammy Davis with “Bang! Bang!” and even Peter Falk makes a decent stab at “All for One and One for All.” Once Sinatra, Martin or Crosby wrapped their larynxes round a particular song, they claimed ownership for life, you can’t imagine anyone else doing it better. And so it proved here.

In acting terms Sinatra, Martin and Davis are on cruise control, although Sinatra, the butt of the conspiracy, tends to have to work a little harder. The supporting cast relish the opportunities presented. Peter Falk (Penelope, 1966) makes the most of a made-to-order role as the back-stabbing mob chief, his fast-talking style little match for more superior brains, and you can see a screen persona develop in front of your eyes. Bing Crosby (Stagecoach, 1966) starts out as a joke with his outlandish language but soon comes to represent a different perspective on legitimate illegitimate moneymaking schemes. Barbara Rush (Come Blow Your Horn, 1963) is quite superb as the conniving sophisticate, all long dresses and innovative ideas.

Although Gordon Douglas (Stagecoach, 1966) would hardly be your go-to director for a musical, he acquits himself very well, incorporating a great deal of the style he evinced in Claudelle Inglish (1961). There are two marvellous running scenes. The first is that whenever the municipality sees fit to lay the foundation stone of some great new building you can be sure the block contains a corpse. But the second is just wonderful. Any time Marian has a man in her lounge, she goes round switching off the lamps until the room is in darkness. Each time, the scene is played in exactly the same way and of course the minute she starts switching off the lights, moving as sinuously as a spider from lamp to lamp, you know where this scene is going. I should also mention the “Mr Booze” sequence in which an illegal nightclub is transformed into a gospel meeting.

Edward G. Robinson (The Biggest Bundle of Them All, 1968) has a cameo and also look out for Oscar-nominated Victor Buono (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, 1962).

The St Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967) ***

I didn’t realise that the Prohibition gangsters who invented the drive-by shooting were perfectionists. Just to be make sure of completing the job, I found out here, they might send a dozen cars one after the other rolling past the chosen restaurant/cafe, machine guns spouting hundreds of bullets. Nobody could survive that, you would think. But there was a flaw to the idea. If someone just lay down on the floor, the bullets would pass over their head. Strangely enough, we never got a potted history of the drive-by shooting in this docu-drama because otherwise we found out just about everything we needed to know about the infamous massacre.

But I did wish that the narrator would shut up once in a while. I kept on thinking we were going to be examined afterwards. Every dumb schmuck that made even a brief appearance on screen got the full bio treatment, including when – and how (not always by violence) – they died. That annoying feature aside, it was certainly a forensic examination of the whys and wherefores of the infamous gangland slaying. Rival Chicago mobsters Al Capone (Jason Robards) and Bugs Moran (Ralph Meeker), both concluding that the other was not open to negotiation, decided instead to rub him out and the movie basically follows how each develops their murderous plan.

All the big gangster names are here – it’s like a hit man’s greatest hits – Frank Nitti (Harold J. Stone), massacre mastermind Jack McGurn (Clint Ritchie) and Capone enforcer Peter Gusenberg (George Segal) – and the movie reprises some of the classic genre tropes like mashing food (sandwich this time rather than grapefruit) in a woman’s face and Capone taking a baseball bat to a traitorous underling. And there’s the usual lopsided notion of “rules,” Capone incandescent that a ganster was murdered in his own home.

Capone’s plan is the cleverest, involving recruiting people with little or no criminal record including the likes of Johnny May (Bruce Dern in a part originally assigned to Jack Nicholson), renting a garage as the massacre venue, and dressing his hoods up as cops. The film occasionally tracks back to set the scene. And the ever-vigilant narrator makes sure to identify every passing gangster but come the climax seems to run out of things to say, a good many sentences beginning with “on the last morning of the last day of his life.”

Since there’s so much money washing around, it makes sense for the ladies to try and get their share. Gusenberg’s girlfriend (Jean Hale) casually, without seeking permission, swaps one fur for another four times as expensive. A sex worker as casually steals from her client’s wallet before demanding payment for services rendered.

The only problem with bringing in so many bit characters – either those doing the murdering or being murdered – into play is that it cuts down the time remaining to cover Capone and Moran, so, apart from the voice-over, we learn little of significance, most of the drama amounting to outbursts of one kind or another. But it’s certainly very entertaining and follows the Raymond Chandler maxim of when in doubt with your story introduce a man with a gun, or in this case machine gun. The violence is episodic throughout.

Despite the authenticity, punches are pulled when it comes to the physical depiction of Capone. The man universally known as “Scarface” shows no signs of such affliction as played by Jason Robards (Hour of the Gun, 1967). Certainly, Robards shows none of the brooding intensity with which we associate Godfather and son Michael in the Coppola epic, rather he has more in common with Sonny. He delivers a one-key performance of no subtlety but since the film has no subtlety either then it’s a good fit. Ralph Meeker (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) has the better role, since being the junior gangster in terms of power he has more to fear. I felt sorry for Oscar-nominated George Segal (No Way To Treat a Lady, 1968) since although his character is there for obvious reasons there is no obvious reason why he should be allocated more screen time. And given more screen time, nobody seems to know what to do with it.

There’s a superb supporting cast including Jean Hale (In Like Flint 1967), Bruce Dern (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, 1969), Frank Silvera (Uptight, 1969), Joseph Campanella (Murder Inc., 1960) Alex Rocco (The Godfather, 1972), future director Gus Trikonis and future superstar Jack Nicholson.

After over a decade of low-budget sci-fi, horror and biker pictures, this was director Roger Corman’s biggest movie to date – his first for a major studio – and, excepting the voice-over, he does an efficient job with the script by Howard Browne (Portrait of a Mobster, 1961) who was presumably responsible for the intrusive narration.

CATCH-UP: This isn’t really a good place to start with the acting of George Segal and you will get a better idea of his talent if you check out the following films covered so far in the Blog; Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964), Lost Command (1966), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) and The Southern Star (1969).

Available on Prime.