In 1962, Hollywood released the b/w Grand Guignolesque cinematic classic What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, who famously hated each other just as vehemently off the screen as they did on it. Just two years later saw the release of a similar-sounding b/w British movie entitled Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? Yet whereas the former acquired cult status and has remained a familiar film, the latter swiftly sank not only into obscurity but also into near non-existence, which is why I was so delighted to be able to watch it today (6 March 2021).
Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? is one of the least-known 1960s British horror movies as far as general movie fans are concerned, but among aficionados it has attained near-legendary status due to the fact that for a considerable time only a massively edited 35-minute version seemingly existed, little more than half the length of the original 55-minute version – but a few years ago the original version unexpectedly turned up on the British Film Institute's online Player and nowadays it has very occasionally been shown on TV too here in the UK.
Indeed, this is how I discovered it today, because when flicking through my TV guide for the next 7 days I spotted that Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? is due to be shown again next Thursday evening by Talking Pictures, a wonderful British TV channel that specializes in screening vintage British movies and TV shows that are only very rarely (if ever) screened elsewhere. This in turn inspired me to check YouTube in case it just so happened to have been uploaded there by anyone, and to my delight I found that it had been, and in its full-length format. So rather than wait another 5 days, I watched Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? online straight away, and what an unusual movie it proved to be.
SPOILER ALERT – if you don't want to know what happens in this movie and, in particular, how it ends, read no further!
Produced and directed by Gerry Levy, and released in 1964, Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? features Warren Mitchell as its principal star, who was soon to gain major fame on TV as the incorrigibly bigoted Alf Garnett in the British sitcom Till Death Us Do Part as well as in its sequel In Sickness And In Health). Here he plays Emilio Dinelli, aka former Italian stage illusionist Emilio the Magician, who now owns a backstreet London shop in which he creates and sells grotesque sideshow, circus, and carnival masks in every conceivable shape and size, as well as all manner of tricks, illusions, and other prestidigitation paraphernalia. As will be seen, however, his conjuring abilities may in reality constitute a great deal more than the typical smoke, mirrors, and misdirection variety performed by stage magicians.
This mysterious movie's storyline begins with three hooligans in their early 20s, consisting of their cocky, easily-angered leader Mickey (played by John Malcolm), the somewhat dim Ginge (Ray Armstrong), and slightly timid, gauche Tim (John Challis, later to gain considerable TV fame, and a moustache, as Boycie in the smash-hit John Sullivan TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses). After creating a disturbance in a jazz club named the Indigo, this trio of tearaways are unceremoniously ejected into the night by the bouncers, just as a similarly-aged but well-spoken, scarf-wearing toff named Kip (Christopher Robbie) is trying to enter, but in the melée he is thrown out too, so he decides to tag along with Mickey and his mates for want of anything better to do.
Looking for trouble, the feckless foursome chance upon a youth named Johnny and his girlfriend kissing in an alley, and while Ginge and Tim hold Johnny back, Mick molests the young woman. But when Johnny breaks free to protect her, Tim picks up a rock and hits him on the head with it, felling Johnny instantly and almost knocking him out cold, so they quickly scarper before his girlfriend can get help.
They find themselves down a backstreet where they discover Emilio's shop. Looking through the window, they can see him working in there before he suddenly gets up, turns off the light, and comes out of his shop – but without locking the door to it. (I'd originally thought that this was a major plot flaw – who leaves their place of work unlocked? – but it transpired that he'd only left it briefly to buy a bottle of wine close by and would be returning straight away.)
During Emilio's short absence, the four hooligans enter the shop, and begin larking around with the various unusual stage props and other gadgets there. Emilio then returns, unsuspectingly walks into his shop, and is promptly pounced upon by the yobs, who tie him to a chair and force him to watch helplessly as they steal money from his cash till and then trash various of his creations. In particular, these include a kind of pinball-cum-football machine named Ballerama, in which small balls are fired in the hope of hitting at the back of the machine a panel labeled 'Goal' but not hitting a nearby panel labeled 'Missed'. To make this task more difficult, there are three footballer figures, each sporting a tiny body but a huge flat smiling face, plus two arms, and four legs(!), who stand in a line between the players and the panels, and who move mechanically as the balls are fired in order to try and deflect the shots away from the 'Goal' panel.
To begin with, the yobs play the game properly, but after imbibing much of Emilio's newly-purchased bottle of wine, they become ever more boisterous, eventually throwing anything that they could find directly at the faces of the three players until all three are smashed. At the very same moment that the face of the third player is destroyed, however, a hideous scream suddenly echoes in the shop, unnerving the yobs.
Somewhat shaken, they untie Emilio and tell him to put on a magic show for them. Finding four chairs, they sit in front of a tall chamber, which Emilio calls his Casket of Invisibility, and after placing various objects reluctantly donated by the yobs inside the chamber, Emilio clicks his fingers, and the curtains in front of the chamber close automatically. He then makes a couple of passes in front of the curtains with his wand, clicks his fingers again, and the curtains reopen – to reveal that all of the objects are gone. He then asks for one of their chairs, and makes that vanish inside the chamber too.
Although clearly impressed, Mickey scoffs, until Emilio asks for one of them to volunteer to be a living object inside the chamber. As the newest member of their gang, Kip is coerced into stepping inside it, after which Emilio clicks his fingers, and the curtains close. But this time he calls out to the forces of silence and the powers of darkness as their servant, requesting them to make one mortal (Kip) inside the chamber disappear, whereupon a blustery chill wind inexplicably materializes, swirling inside the shop, followed by a loud clap of thunder. Emilio clicks his fingers, the chamber's curtains open – and Kip is gone. A clearly discomfited Mickey calls out to him, but there is no answer. Mickey then orders Ginge to take a turn inside the chamber, mocking him when he initially seems nervous to do so, but once he is inside it the very same series of eerie events repeats, culminating in Ginge's disappearance.
By now, Mickey is both alarmed and angry, and demands to know where his two vanished mates are, but Emilio tells him that they are gone, and that the only way for him to find them is if he enters the chamber. So he does, and, hey presto, after the chants, the wind, and the thunder, the curtains open to reveal that Mickey is gone too. Petrified, Tim races out of the shop, but shortly afterwards Emilio hears a knock on the shop door, opens it, and finds a couple of policemen there, accompanied by Tim, who vehemently claims that Emilio has made his three mates disappear. When the senior policeman, Sergeant Smart of the CID, sees the almost empty bottle of wine, however, he swiftly dismisses Tim's allegations as drunken delusions. Sgt Smart then asks Emilio if the other three had indeed come here, to which Emilio truthfully replies: "Oh yes, they came, but they went". Satisfied, Smart nods his head, bids Emilio goodnight, and the two policemen leave, taking Tim with them.
The final scene shows Emilio alone, laughing hysterically before turning off the light and leaving his shop (presumably locking it behind him this time!), whose interior is now all in darkness except for a beam of moonlight that lights up the pinball/football machine. Strangely, it no longer seems damaged – all three of its footballer figures are back in place, and their faces are no longer broken, but their features do seem oddly familiar…
Overall, Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? plays very much like an extended episode of Roald Dahl's 30-minute TV show Tales of the Unexpected from the 1980s, complete with a macabre sting in the tail. Indeed, the 35-minute edited version could have slotted into such a series very readily. Showing how attitudes have changed down through the decades, when originally released in Britain during the mid-1960s this movie sported an X certificate (equivalent to today's 18), but it is nowadays rated merely as a 12-certificate film when shown on TV here. Having said that, its horror content, such that it is, actually arises far more from the yobs' violent treatment of Johnny and his girlfriend, and especially of the ostensibly helpless, defenceless Emilio, than from its apparent supernatural aspects.
Last but definitely not least is this movie's very distinctive title song (albeit with lyrics that bear no relation to the movie's plot). It was written and performed at the beginning (visually) and again at the end (aurally), over the credits, by Northern Irish blues singer Ottilie Paterson, backed by the Chris Barber Jazz Band (she was married to Barber for over 20 years), plus Sonny Boy Williamson on harmonica. Click here to watch these segments.
All in all, Where Has Poor Mickey Gone? is a strange but memorable little movie, and if you'd like to watch it on YouTube as I did today, please click here to access it while it is still available there.
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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