the audience applauded

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A festival celebrating the Beat Generation in New York, runs from 3 to 8 June. The conceit of the organizers is to honor the late Beat Poet Allan Ginsberg, who were he alive, would turn 90 on 3 June. The film 'The Beat Generation', some 57 years old, is a haunted house that creaks. It a pair of whiskers that covers a detective story of a serial killer, who's 'Beat'. Even when the film flared across screens in America, it was obvious that Hollywood's knowledge and use of the Beats and the rage among the middle class youth, expressing a muted discontent and restlessness of the early Cold War repression of liberal thought and the starch collars of the Eisenhower years, found expression, albeit half understood, and the stereotypes are stultifying and cardboard like. Scenes from 'Bell, Book and Candle; and yes 'Funny Face' had scenes in smoked filled 'cafes', deeply set in indolence and utter boredom, and bongo playing. It was the time of daddy-o and the use of jazz expression to convey 'ennui'. The film featuring Steve Cochran, Mamie Van Doren and Ray Danton, is a pastiche of the Beats. At one point Danton quotes Schopenhauer, about the perfidy of the female sex, to justify his penchant for killing women, as a revolt against his oft married father who weds younger women even younger than Danton. (In fact, Danton is physically too old for the part; he's wooden throughout the film). This B film was a come down for Cochran. He had two years before starred in Antoninio's 'Il grido', but upon his return he had this script to pay his bills. Mamie Van Doren is fluff and buxom and eye candy. No Kerouac, no Ginsberg, no Cassidy, no William Burroughs...nothing of the Beat Generation. In sum, we have an exploitation film, which is hardly convincing, and maybe evoked yawns and groans. I suspect he didn't draw a big gate and was made cheaply. Overall, it is low camp at its best, a curiosity piece best left to gather dust.

This MGM-released (!) opus from the late '50s is rife with unsavory excess and a pretty sick puppy from the fertile mind of that renowned horror & sci-fi scribe, Richard Matheson. As a classic example of Albert Zugsmith-style exploitation, it's got a little bit of everything but some of the playfulness (that "let's all go to the moon" number and the "drag stakeout", for example) diluted what could have been a solid little thriller. Still, despite the nonsense, there's more than enough perversity, violence, and duality to satisfy the avid noirista.Robotic Ray Danton actually proves to be quite chilling as a vicious Be-Bop "Svengali" who gets his kicks serially raping housewives and has the same problem Susan Cabot did in Roger Corman's SORORITY GIRL (a perfect second feature) in that he's just a spoiled rich kid who's got everything but a parent's love. Steve Cochran's a misogynistic cop who's wife (Fay Spain) is beaten and raped by Danton and when she finds herself pregnant, Cochran goes all out to nail the creep.The rapist is called "The Aspirin Kid" and gets into women's homes by pretending to be a friend of their husband's but once inside he feigns a headache and when they go get him a glass of water for his aspirin, he strikes. He drags them to the bedroom and the camera lingers on the door while the viewer hears the slapping, beating, pleading, and screaming going on inside. And as if that wasn't enough, the bruised and swollen faces of the victims brings it all home, as well.Mamie Van Doren doesn't miss a beat as "Mrs. Alteras", a voluptuous hot-to-trot divorcée who almost becomes a victim -and no doubt would have loved it. Danton gets one of his minions to do a "copy-cat" rape to throw the police off and when the guy (Jim Mitchum, Bob's look-alike son) is just about to attack Miss Mamie, her ex-husband (Van Doren's real-life husband, bandleader Ray Anthony) bursts in. Mamie whispers to Jim to give her a call when her "ex" isn't around and ends up having a very "special" relationship with her would-be rapist. Cochran thinks she knows the perp's identity and asks her out; she's willing ....but when she finds it's not sex but information he wants, she clams up. Her reaction to the fact her young stud may be "The Aspirin Kid" is basically "So what?"What's reely amazing, however, is the social issues this exploitation shocker attempts to tackle: misogyny, rape, abortion, disaffected youth, even God. It's also a low-rent version of Fritz Lang's THE BIG HEAT with tough cop Cochran out for revenge when his home-life is torn apart (Fay Spain has the Jocelyn Brando role) and Miss Mamie plays the good/bad Gloria Grahame part. Cochran loves his wife but hates all women because of his first wife and Mamie is exactly the kind of woman he despises. This becomes a journey of discovery for Cochran, who gets his epiphany in a "mirror image": when Steve and Danton face off, it predicts the scene in PSYCHO when Gavin and Perkins stare at each other over the motel reception desk. Cochran thinks all women are tramps (Danton calls them "filth") and he believes the housewives "asked for it" until it happens to his wife. There's no truly evil people in this film; even the rapist breaks down and cries, begging to die. Cop Jackie Coogan's happy home-life provides the voice of reason as does Fay Spain's best friend, Irish McCalla -along with a priest (!) to discuss the abortion issue. Mamie Van Doren and her young stud are ambiguous at best, neither good nor bad (probably both) but come around when confronted with a grim life-or-death situation and end up on the "right side of the street". Unlike most film noir, there's even a happy ending all the way around except for Mamie and Mitchum -nothing really happens to them.It's easy to see the "noir paranoia" here; compare the misunderstood title youth in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and THE WILD ONE with the "herd mentality" of THE BEAT GENERATION (tellingly, the earlier films' titles refer to individual rebels, while the other is all-encompassing) and the later Italian Giallo would do the same thing to hippies that BEAT does to beatniks: they're either fools or followers murderous sociopaths can use to "blend in" and hide behind.A "must-see" in many ways.

Like a few others have already stated in these user comments, it's kind of surprising that the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio of 1959 would get involved in a movie with a number of trashy elements. The movie has a number of flaws as well. The musical numbers seem out of place for a serious story, and there is also comedy relief that seems out of place. The movie is stretched out to the breaking point when a more compact telling was obviously needed. And the character of the rapist isn't really explored that well.Still, there are some interesting things to be found here. The movie explores some topics like rape and abortion with effectiveness that even more than 50 years later still seems a little daring. Also, Ray Danton, despite a weakly written character, acts in a really slimy way that makes him an effective villain. While this material isn't enough to make the movie worth searching for, if it happens to come on your TV, people interested in 50s movie exploitation that was done while still hampered by a production code may find the movie of some interest.

I watched "The Beat Generation" on Turner Classic Movies last night. I found it unbelievable that Metro Goldwyn Mayer, once Hollywood's most prestigious studio, would have its name attached to such a farrago of a movie. One the one hand, is a taboo-busting film about misogyny, rape, the possibility of pregnancy arising from that rape, and the possibility of abortion. On the other is a surrealistic parody of the Beatnik lifestyle. Somehow these two films were fused together into a result that, in today's slang, is a "hot mess". Look for dark and brooding Steve Cochran and Ray Danton as two types of pomaded misogynists - Cochran a cop who thinks rape victims "ask for it" and Ray Danton as a Beat-slang-quoting rapist. Mamie Van Dorn appears as a "loose" woman.