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City Within a City: The Biography of Chicago’s Marina City
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Marina City stars in its first movies
1964-65
Photo by Ralph Arvidson
(Above) A film crew prepares a set for Mickey One, a movie filmed at Marina City in 1964. This Chicago Sun-Times photo by Ralph Arvidson on May 4, 1964, shows a “Rube Goldberg” type apparatus, constructed on Marina City’s skating rink, and composed of bicycle wheels, gears, a piano, and other items. Photo is looking northwest toward the west tower. The theater building is under construction at upper right, where a line of spectators has gathered.
Facets Video Goldstein was Philip Kaufman’s first film, and it included scenes at Marina City.

Kaufman would go on to direct Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Henry & June. He would also write for the Raiders of the Lost Ark films.

But in 1964, he made a low-budget, 85-minute black-and-white film – about a prophetic old man – that won the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique award at Cannes Film Festival in May 1964. The film was released in the United States on May 7, 1965.

(Left) Goldstein DVD jacket (Facets Video).

It starred Lou Gilbert (1909-1978) as the old man, Ellen Madison (1937-1987), Ben Carruthers (1936-1983), Second City alumni Del Close (1934-1999), Severn Darden (1929-1995), Anthony Holland (1928-1988), and Jack Burns (1933-2020). Burns was a comedian and voice actor who co-hosted The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour on TV in 1973.

Noted Chicago writer Nelson Algren (1909-1981) also made an appearance as himself. Scenes were filmed inside an apartment at Marina City in either late 1963 or early 1964.

Facets Video (Left) In a scene from Goldstein, Jack Burns waits on the east-facing balcony of an apartment in the east tower.

Facets Video Anthony Holland and Ben Carruthers in the hallway of a two-bedroom apartment at Marina City.

Facets Video Ben Carruthers and Ellen Madison in the living room of an east tower apartment.

Facets Video Severn Darden and Ben Carruthers in a central hallway at Marina City.

Watch the scene filmed at Marina City...

Marina City helps Warren Beatty lay low

Around May 1964, scenes were filmed at Marina City for Mickey One, a surreal, freewheeling drama released on September 27, 1965, by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by Arthur Penn, whose work includes The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde, and Alice’s Restaurant.

(Right) Title card of 1965 film Mickie One (Columbia Pictures).

Columbia Pictures

The film starred Warren Beatty as a nightclub comic fleeing the Detroit Mob for Chicago. (Yes, you read that correctly.) It is considered a cult classic today.

Scenes were filmed inside a residential unit and corridor, at the skating rink, the west tower parking ramp, and on the Chicago River. For the scene at the skating rink, a large, animated sculpture was constructed and then destroyed by fire for the movie. Robert Fields, who at the time was an industrial design student at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, created the sculpture.

Columbia Pictures The scene featured Warren Beatty as Mickey, Alexandra Stewart as Jenny, noted Japanese actor Kamatari Fujiwara (1905-1985) as “The Artist,” and the Chicago Fire Department.

(Left) For this scene in Mickie One, an elaborate artwork was constructed on Marina City’s skating rink.

An interior Marina City scene featured Beatty and Hurd Hatfield (1917-1998) as Mr. Castle.

While filming in Chicago from March through May 1964, the stars of the movie stayed at Astor Towers Hotel, another building designed by Marina City architect Bertrand Goldberg. The film opened in Chicago on October 27, 1965, at the Woods Theater, a movie palace at Dearborn & Randolph that was demolished in the 1990s.

Columbia Pictures (Left) Warren Beatty in front of a Marina City apartment.

Columbia Pictures Warren Beatty, climbing in the west tower parking ramp, in a scene from Mickey One. In the distance there is a large billboard for Seay & Thomas Inc., a Chicago real estate firm.

The interior Marina City scene with Warren Beatty and Hurd Hatfield...

The exterior Marina City scene...

Written by Steven Dahlman
Presented for nonprofit educational purposes