Mickey (film)

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Movie
Original title Mickey
Mickey Poster.jpg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1918
length 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director F. Richard Jones ,
James Young
script JG Hawks
production Mabel Normand ,
Mack Sennett
camera Fred Jackman ,
Hans F. Koenekamp ,
Hugh McClung ,
Frank D. Williams
cut John O'Donnell
occupation

Mickey is an American silent film made by F. Richard Jones and James Young in 1918 based on a script by JG Hawks. The female lead was played by Mabel Normand , who also produced the film together with Mack Sennett . George Nichols, Wheeler Oakman and Minta Durfee also starred.

The film was also called Mountain Bred . This refers to a basic motif of the film, the contrast between the rough but honest mountain people from the west, for whom Joe and Mickey stand, and the supposedly fine, but in truth false and greedy people from the eastern United States, those of the Drakes are embodied.

action

Mickey is an orphan who lives in a cabin in the mountains of California. She was raised there by the gold digger Joe Meadows after the death of her father, who was his old friend and partner. Now she is big, and Joe would like to send her to New York, where she will live with her aunt Mrs. Drake. She should make Mickey a real lady .

Mrs. Drake, meanwhile, would like to marry her own daughter Elsie to another mine owner, Herbert Thornhill, in order to free herself from the financial troubles the Drake family has been grappling with since son Reggie Drake wagered almost their fortune on horse races.

But when Thornhill travels to California on a telegram informing him of border disputes over his mine, he meets Mickey and falls in love with her. This creates an embarrassing situation when Mickey later comes to New York to stay with the Drakes.

The reservations that the noble family in the east initially harbored against the "country egg" from the Wild West quickly vanish when a telegram arrives informing about the enormous increase in value of the Meadows mine. Since it now looks like Mickey is rich, she becomes interesting for the marriage plans that the aunt has with her son. Reggie starts making clumsy advances to Mickey, much to Thornhill's annoyance.

He now has to choose between Elsie, whom he has already proposed, and Mickey, whom he thought he would never see again, but still loves. His attorney, Tom Rawlings, brought him a telegram stating that the court had revoked his rights to his mine and that he would have to repay $ 10,000 if he did not want to commit a crime. Now Thornhill is as poor as Mickey was. Elsie promptly breaks off the engagement with him. But the telegram, it turns out in the end, was just a ruse by Rawlings to get Thornhill out of his entanglements with the Drake family; everything is fine with the rights and the mine is very profitable.

Mickey's initial sympathy for Reggie wanes when he gets involved in criminal machinations in connection with his passion for betting. Thornhill and Mickey find each other and get married. Your honeymoon will go to where Mickey came from: the gold rush world in the west.

reception

Mickey originally had 8 acts and a length of 93 minutes. The recordings were made on 24th Street in Los Angeles , Big Bear Lake and Big Bear Valley in the San Bernardino National Forest in California . Shooting started in autumn 1916. Due to Mabel Normand's illness at the end of 1916, production dragged on until spring 1917.

In the United States, Mickey was awarded by the WH Productions Company . The world rights to it acquired on December 27, 1917 the Western Import Company .

Mickey premiered in America on August 11, 1918. Producer Sennett had started an elaborate advertising campaign, which was not without effect: After the screening of the film, the Americans were literally "Mickey crazy".

Mickey was the top-selling film of 1918 on a budget of $ 250,000 and revenues of $ 8 million worldwide.

In France , the film was only released in a shortened version.

Mickey survived in two versions: the original rental version from 1918 with a playing time of 67 minutes and in an edited version extended by additional material, which was reissued in the 1920s by the FBO (Film Booking Offices of America, Incorporated) and 100 minutes took.

Neil Moret (pseudonym for Charles N. Daniels) composed a film hit ( theme song ) for Mickey , to which Harry Williams wrote the words. It was copyrighted in 1918 and published by Daniels & Wilson, Music Publishers San Francisco and New York. The Joseph C. Smith Trio made a record of it on January 18, 1919 at the Victor Co. in Camden, New Jersey .

Web links

literature

  • Maurice Bardèche and Robert Brasillach: The History of Motion Pictures; translated by Iris Barry. New York: WW Norton & Company / The Museum of Modern Art, 1938. page 116.
  • Kevin Brownlow: The Parade's Gone By, revised edition. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1975. p. 308.
  • Walter Kerr: The Silent Clowns. An extensive overview of comedies and comedians the silent era. New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Pages 70 u. 292.

Individual evidence

  1. z. T. after the summary of Snow Leopard at IMDb.
  2. so IMDb; silentera.com. indicates 7 acts and 74 minutes
  3. cf. see 'Trivia' at IMDb
  4. so at silentera.com [1]
  5. so silentcinema.com: "Mack Sennett devised a huge publicity campaign to publicize this film and America literally went" Mickey Mad "upon the film's release."
  6. Robin Coons: Hollywood Chatter . In: The Daytona Beach News-Journal , Google , June 30, 1939. Retrieved February 27, 2011. 
  7. according to a report in Ciné Pour Tous of April 17, 1920, cf. IMDb: "The April 17, 1920 issue of Ciné Pour Tous claims the version released in France was shortened."
  8. The film was reedited, expanded with additional footage, and re-released in the USA by Film Booking Offices of America, Incorporated [FBO]. [?] One extant print viewed bore a 1917 copyright notice from Keystone Company , cf. silentera.com [2]
  9. cf. songwritershalloffame Archived copy ( memento of the original from April 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.songwritershalloffame.org
  10. cf. silentcinema.com [3]