Tuesday's Overlooked Movie: Mikey and Nicky (1976)

I'd read of this little gem of a crime film a long time ago, but always failed to see it. I once had the Finnish VHS published in 1989, but I couldn't watch it, since the picture ratio was so wrong, my eyes started to bleed. Now I finally had a chance to see it on screen, and boy, was it good! Mikey and Nicky was ahead of its time as a crime film and hasn't aged as some other crime films of its era have.

John Cassavetes and Peter Falk play minor gangsters in the movie. In the beginning we see the freaked-out Cassavetes in a sleazy hotel room, seemingly afraid of everything. He thinks other gangsters are trying to kill him, and Falk offers to help him. It becomes a bit of an odyssey through night-time streets, dirty joints and movie theaters. Ned Beatty plays the hired killer who doesn't seem to get anywhere on time. There's a bit of a surprise twist near the end, but more essential is the actual ending of the film, very poignant and touching, with a nice touch in the dialogue.

The writer and director Elaine May let Cassavetes and Falk improvise their scenes (at least partly), and this brings life to the characters that otherwise might be stock. There's warmth, energy, fear, abruptness, violence and jerkiness to these guys, and while they are not very likable, they feel very real.

The improvisation led to film being burned, which made the studio angry, and then Elaine May sat on the results for three years and trying to bring the thing together, but then the studio decided otherwise, and the end result isn't what May had in mind. I don't know whether we'll ever see May's version of Mikey and Nicky. (The Finnish version, seen here after a five-year break in 1981, is slightly shorter than the original American print.)

Someone has said this is the best film ever produced in Hollywood directed by a woman. I don't know if this is the case anymore, but it may have been. At least Mikey and Nicky is different and interesting. Here's Jonathan Rosenbaum on the film.

More Overlooked Movies at Todd Mason's blog. (Hopefully.)

PS. Oh, I'd written about this and the goddamn Finnish VHS earlier.

Tuesday's Overlooked Film: Mikey and Nicky

I've been trying to watch Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky for weeks now. "Trying?" you ask. Yes, trying. The VHS I've bought years ago from a thrift store is a mess and makes your eyes wet with tears: the picture is fuzzy and scratched to begin with, but the main thing is that the picture size is wrong. I can make it just about right by zooming the television screen, but then the captions disappear. And it's pretty important to understand what the guys in lead - Mikey and Nickey - say, because they talk all the time. Talk talk talk, that's what the film is about.

But there's also a plot. John Cassavetes plays Nicky, a small time crook, who's afraid a mobster is trying to kill him. Peter Falk is Mikey, Nicky's friend, whom Nicky calls for help. They wander around the city, hit some bars, visit some women, try to stay away from the mobsters. And talk all the time. Ned Beatty plays a hitman, who's really looking for Nicky.

It's no wonder John Cassavetes is in this, since the film looks a lot like one of his. The conversations between Mikey and Nicky seem improvised, and Elaine May shot the film with three cameras, sometimes letting the cameras roll for minutes after Cassavetes and Falk had disappeared from the focus. May crossed the budget with several million dollars (something she did later on with more disastrous results in Ishtar) and the film got only a limited release. I don't know if it's easily available on DVD.

If it is, I think I'm gonna drop this VHS into a river and get done with it. I can't bear to watch it. The film is a good experimental noir from the seventies, on par with Taxi Driver, Night Moves, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and others, so it's highly recommended if you can stand two hours of rambling conversations. And oh, I think this influenced Sopranos. The picture Elaine May gives about the mob and the small crooks affiliated with them is pretty similar to David Chase's masterpiece. (Same goes for James Toback's Fingers, a very good film I saw a couple years ago, but failed to write about here in Pulpetti.)

More Forgotten Films at Todd Mason's blog.