When Whitefish Bay native Niels Mueller returned to Milwaukee for the holidays, he did more than just catch up with friends and family. He also promoted his new film, "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," in what he calls a "one-man press tour."

Mueller, who co-wrote and directed the film starring Sean Penn, found an esoteric start to the project. He originally wrote 30 pages for a script about a fictitious assassination attempt of Lyndon B. Johnson by a character who felt deserted by the American Dream.

Early in his research, Mueller checked out 10 books from the Los Angeles public library on assassins, and one had a short chapter on Sam Bicke, a man who was so unsuccessful with his attempt to murder 37th President, Richard Nixon, it went virtually unnoticed in the media.

Although Mueller had never heard of Bicke, the similarities between he and his fictitious assassin were uncanny.

"I wanted to write a film about a man who is virtually a forgotten footnote in history," says Mueller. "And that's exactly who Bicke was."

So Mueller wrote the story of Sam Bicke's life, circa 1974, but even with Academy Award winner Sean Penn and Hollywood heavies Don Cheadle and Naomi Watts on board, it took four years for him to secure financing for the film. Because the script was written before the 9/11 crisis and includes footage of a plane hijacking, some speculated that the film would never air on a large screen.

During the four-year wait, Mueller wrote "Tadpole," a film shot in two weeks starring the late John Ritter, Sigourney Weaver and Bebe Neuwirth. He also co-wrote a lighthearted comedy starring Jennifer Garner called "13 going on 30."

But all the while, Mueller felt destined to make "Nixon," not only because of the synchronicity between his original script and the real-life experiences of Bicke, but because he and co-writer Kevin Kennedy felt a subtle connection to Bicke.

"(Bicke) goes through simple struggles: a divorce, frustrations at work, things that all of us can relate to," says Mueller.

The intense film details the unraveling of Bicke's marriage and work life while the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War convince Bicke -- who becomes obsessed with television news -- that Nixon is the person responsible for all of his, and America's, problems.

"Nixon" is based on a true story, and most of the details are accurate, but some, like Bicke working in a furniture store, were derived from Mueller's experiences growing up in Milwaukee.

"My father owned a office furniture store in Milwaukee and (co-writer Kevin Kennedy and I) watched old super eight movies of his business," he says. "We sometimes ignored the surface details to get closer to a truth."

For now, Mueller is promoting "Nixon," weighing offers to direct other films and working on a screenplay that he had put away for a couple of years, tentatively called "The Milwaukee Story."

"I recently dug it out and thought, 'Huh. This isn't bad,'" he says.