The Beat Generation

1959 "Behind the Weird "Way-Out" World of the Beatniks!"
5.5| 1h35m| en| More Info
Released: 03 July 1959 Released
Producted By: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

A group of beatniks unwittingly harbor a serial rapist. A cop goes after him after his wife is attacked.

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Reviews

Interesteg What makes it different from others?
Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
mark.waltz The presence of Ray Danton always left me cold, sort of creeped out. He had an element of sleaze in his good looks, like someone so certain of their sex appeal to women that you know that there was perversion underneath the surface. This is a nasty drama of a serial rapist so repulsive that you long to see him castrated. Danton here plays a character nicknamed The Aspirin Rapist because he always distracts the victim as he drops in on by politely claiming a headache and asking for a pain killer. When one of the victims turns out to be the wife of the detective in investigating the case, it comes as no surprise when she ends up being pregnant. Talks about abortion might seem to be a first but a conversation with priest William Schallert made me angry in how juvenile the arguments for and against it seemed to be.Vampira adds some obviously intentional laughs as a beatnik poet, and Louis Armstrong and Cathy Crosby sing a few songs. Unfortunately, Crosby's rendition of the Lena Horne/Judy Garland hit, "Love", is truncated with the interruption of the lame dialog. Other than these curious incidents, this is an extremely crass movie probably made independently but released by MGM. If he hadn't died a reclusive, broken man two years before, seeing his former studio release crap like this would have killed Louis B. Mayer for sure. In addition to Danton, there's Steve Cochran as the police investigator whose wife (a very good Fay Spain) is one of Danton's victims, the dull Mamie Van Doren as a rape victim who secretly seemed to like it and Margaret Hayes as the very mature first victim. Hayes is a fascinating actress whose "B" film appearances seemed to all be aging 40's glamour girls who couldn't let go of their past. In the final scene, MGM seems to have utilized Esther Williams' old swimming pool but dramatically is a let-down. Since this seems like something that naturally played at drive-ins, I hope that some audience members had the sense to drive out.
marlene_rantz I watched this movie with some hesitation, because it really received awful reviews; however, because I like Ray Danton and Steve Cochran, I decided to give it a chance. Ray Danton and Steve Cochran both gave very good performances, as did Mamie Van Doren, Fay Spain, Jackie Coogan, and Jim Mitchum, and the plot, though trashy, was interesting, and as pointed out by Martin Teller, this movie was weirdly compelling, mainly due, I think, to Ray Danton's very menacing and interesting performance as a killer, and Steve Cochran's performance as a complex cop. I am, therefore, recommending this movie, but only if you like any of the actors in it, since they all gave good performances, and, I think, one can bear with the worst movie if one is a fan of an actor!
cbalducc 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.
cricket-14 Mamie Van Doren is deliciously "pneumatic" as always, a rougher version of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.This film is one of my favorite bad films - and from me that's a compliment!Juvenile delinquency films were Mamie's forte - check her out in Girls Town and High School Confidential - they have cool casts like this film, bad racy scripts, and Miss Van Doren herself "The Queen of Teen".In this film we have everything - the lovely Mamie Van Doren, a serial rapist "The Aspirin Kid"(played by Ray Danton), one of my favorite B movie hunks (namely Steve Cochran) in a bathing suit no less, a hula-hooping suburban housewife, and even a very blonde Vampira (!) in a speaking role, reciting some hip Beatnik poetry about parents being a "drag". And the children of (much more talented) famous parents: Charles Chaplin Jr, Jim Mitchum, etc. What more could you ask for in a camp trash late '50s flick?This film is definitely a must-see for any trash, B movie lover . . . as are most of Mamie Van Doren's late "50's films.