Mickey | |
---|---|
![]() Film poster | |
Directed by | F. Richard Jones James Young |
Written by | J.G. Hawks |
Produced by | Mabel Normand Mack Sennett |
Starring | Mabel Normand |
Cinematography | Fred Jackman Hans F. Koenekamp Hugh McClung Frank D. Williams |
Edited by | John O'Donnell |
Distributed by | States Rights Independent Exchanges Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 93 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | Silent film English intertitles |
Budget | $250,000 |
Box office | $16,450,000 |
Mickey is a 1918 silent comedy-drama film starring Mabel Normand, directed by F. Richard Jones and James Young, and written by J.G. Hawks. The movie was produced by the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company.
Mickey is an adult orphan who has been raised since girlhood in poverty near Feather River, California, by an unsuccessful miner, Joe Meadows, and his housekeeper, Minnie. Mickey is the free-spirited, uncultured daughter of the miner's deceased partner. Joe took charge of Mickey at her dying mother's request.
Mickey is sent to live in Great Neck, Long Island—part of suburban New York City—with her aunt, Mrs. Drake, and her family. Mrs. Drake is under the impression that Mickey is wealthy and well refined. When Mickey arrives at her aunt's luxurious home, she is disappointed that Mickey is not well-to-do and puts her to work as a servant. Mickey's presence there sparks an awkward love triangle involving her, her cousin Elsie, and young mining executive Herbert Thornhill, whom Mickey first met in California. Just after Mickey is sent packing, a telegram arrives for her announcing that a vein has been struck on Joe's Tomboy mine and she is suddenly worth millions. Mrs. Drake's opinion of Mickey changes quickly and she is welcomed back—in the hope she and Mrs. Drake's feckless son, Reggie, will become a couple.
Herbert proposes to Elsie, but realizes he loves Mickey. Shortly afterward, Herbert receives a telegram from his lawyer, Tom Rawlings, explaining that his mining claims are now invalid and thus worthless. Elsie and Mrs. Drake find the telegram and call off the wedding because Herbert is now bankrupt. Herbert tries to regain his fortune by borrowing $5,000 and betting it on a horse race. The race is rigged—and Mickey finds out about the plot. Just as the race is about to begin, Mickey dresses in jockey silks, unhorses the crooked jockey, and tries to win the race by riding it for Herbert. Just as it appears Mickey's horse will win, she falls from her mount. Some time later Mickey reluctantly goes horseback riding with Reggie, who tries to molest her in an abandoned house. Herbert arrives on the scene, battles Reggie, and rescues Mickey as she is dangling dangerously from the rooftop. Mickey and Herbert are married. As they depart on their honeymoon, a note arrives from Rawlings explaining the earlier telegram about Herbert's mining interests being worthless was a ruse designed to get Herbert out of his loveless engagement to Elsie.
Despite its eventual popularity, Mickey was not widely shown for more than a year. According to Mack Sennett's 1954 autobiography, King of Comedy, the film was perceived to be a flop and initial response by distributors was resoundingly negative. This attitude perplexed Sennett because he thought Mickey was the best film his studio had ever produced for Mabel Normand. He believed the script gave Normand tremendous scope and range for her whimsical talents. Nevertheless, Sennett continued to publicize the movie in trade publications to keep it in the minds of the theater owners. After about two years, however, Sennett learned that a small theater in Bayside, Long Island was unexpectedly without any film to screen one night and the proprietor was desperate. Sennett quickly offered him a copy of Mickey. Having no alternative, he eagerly accepted Sennett's suggestion. With only minimal advertising, Mickey attracted an enormous crowd and the audience's response was very favorable. Shortly thereafter, other theaters clamored for prints of the film too. By the time Mickey had become a box office hit, Mabel Normand was no longer under contract to Mack Sennett, having signed a lucrative five-year deal with Sam Goldwyn.
"Mickey" is also the title of a song adapted from the movie, with lyrics by Harry Williams and music by Neil Moret (pseudonym for Charles N. Daniels), copyrighted in 1918 and published by Daniels & Wilson of San Francisco and New York. The song can be heard in some public domain releases of the film.
Mickey was the highest-grossing film of 1918, with a worldwide gross of $8 million and made on a budget of $250,000. [1]
Mickey was re-released each year into 1921. [2] During that time, an estimated 41.8 million tickets were sold for the film, making it the most-attended film of the silent era. Its ticket sales were not surpassed until 1938 by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. [3]
The film was widely celebrated by critics. A review in The Tatler said "No photoplay yet produced is so filled with adventure, thrills and human emotions as Mickey." A critic in Moving Picture World wrote "Mickey is a digest of the science of producing motion pictures. It has everything imaginable that might be conceived by the most inventive producer, past or present." [4]
The Keystone Cops are fictional, humorously incompetent policemen featured in silent film slapstick comedies produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917.
Tillie's Punctured Romance is a 1914 American silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett and starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin, and the Keystone Cops. The picture is the first feature-length comedy and was the only feature-length comedy made by the Keystone Film Company.
Amabel Ethelreid Normand, better known as Mabel Normand, was an American silent film actress, director and screenwriter. She was a popular star and collaborator of Mack Sennett in their Keystone Studios films, and at the height of her career in the late 1910s and early 1920s had her own film studio and production company, the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company. On screen, she appeared in twelve successful films with Charlie Chaplin and seventeen with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, sometimes writing and directing films featuring Chaplin as her leading man.
The Extra Girl is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by F. Richard Jones and starring Mabel Normand. Produced by Mack Sennett, The Extra Girl followed earlier films about the film industry and also paved the way for later films about Hollywood, such as King Vidor's Show People (1928). It was still unusual in 1923 for filmmakers to make a film about the southern California film industry, then little more than ten years old. Still, many of the Hollywood clichés of small town girls travelling to Hollywood to become film stars are here to reinforce the myths of "Tinseltown".
Frank Richard Jones was an American director, screenwriter, and producer.
Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life is a 1913 silent comedy short, directed and produced by Mack Sennett. It stars Sennett, Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, The Keystone Cops and Barney Oldfield as himself, in his film debut. It was distributed by the Keystone Film Company, and released in the United States on June 3, 1913. The film is preserved and was released as part of a DVD box set, titled Slapstick Encyclopedia, and is frequently featured in silent film festivals.
Araminta Estelle "Minta" Durfee was an American silent film actress from Los Angeles, California, possibly best known for her role in Mickey (1918).
Alice Howell was a silent film comedy actress from New York City. She was the mother of actress Yvonne Howell.
Mabel at the Wheel is a 1914 American motion picture starring Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, and directed by Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett. The film is also known as Hot Finish.
Gentlemen of Nerve is a 1914 American comedy silent film directed by Charlie Chaplin, starring Chaplin and Mabel Normand, and produced by Mack Sennett for Keystone Studios.
Getting Acquainted, subsequently retitled A Fair Exchange, is a 1914 American comedy silent film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, starring Chaplin and Mabel Normand, and produced by Mack Sennett for Keystone Studios.
'If Only' Jim is a 1921 American silent Western film directed by Jacques Jaccard and starring Harry Carey. The film is based on Philip Verrill Mighel's 1904 novel Bruvver Jim's Baby. It is not known whether the film currently survives, and it may be a lost film.
Mabel's Dramatic Career is a 1913 American short comedy film starring Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett while featuring Roscoe Arbuckle in a cameo. The movie features a film within a film and uses multiple exposure to show a film being projected in a cinema.
Wished on Mabel is a 1915 American silent comedy short or "one-reeler" filmed at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, and directed by Mabel Normand. The short also co-stars Normand and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
Suzanna is a 1923 American silent comedy-drama film starring Mabel Normand and directed F. Richard Jones. The picture was produced by Mack Sennett, who also adapted the screenplay from a story by Linton Wells. A partial copy of the film, which is missing two reels, is in a European archive.
Minnie Devereaux was an American silent film actress. She was a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma. More commonly known as Minnie Provost and occasionally "Indian Minnie", or "Minnie Ha-Ha", she held at least 14 roles, beginning in 1913 with Old Mammy’s Secret Code and ending with the 1923 release of The Girl of the Golden West. A few sources say she was a Cheyenne and the daughter of a Chief Plenty Horses. However, her father is often confused with Plenty Horses who was Lakota and born the same year as Minnie. In a 1917 interview published in the Mack Sennett Weekly Provost states that she was born to Cheyenne parents who fled G. A. Custer's Army during the Battle of the Little Bighorn, an event that took place when she was eight years old.
Hollywood Cavalcade is a 1939 American film featuring Alice Faye as a young performer making her way in the early days of Hollywood, from slapstick silent pictures through the transition from silent to sound.
Peck's Bad Girl is a 1918 comedy film directed by Charles Giblyn, written by Tex Charwate, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and starring Mabel Normand and Earle Foxe. The black and white silent film, in the style of the Peck's Bad Boy stories, was released by the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation in 35mm on September 2, 1918. The picture's running time is 50 minutes.
A Dash Through the Clouds is a 1912 short American silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett, written by Dell Henderson and starring Mabel Normand. It has the distinction of being somewhat of an aviation film as Sennett employed the services of real life aviation pioneer, Philip Parmelee, a pilot for the Wright Brothers.
At It Again is a 1912 American short silent comedy film produced and directed by Mack Sennett. The film stars Fred Mace, Mack Sennett, Ford Sterling, Mabel Normand and Alice Davenport.