This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

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.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Another Tail Fin Noir (barely), a curiosity on the cusp of Classic Noir/Neo NoirThe Beat Generation is somewhat in the vein of Detective Story (1951) the ensemble film that takes place in a New York City Police Precinct Detective squad. In Detective Story, Kirk Douglas plays an embittered morally superior cop McLeod who crusades against NYC's lowlifes. In the course of his pursuit of a Doctor Schneider who is an abortionist he discovers that his wife Mary, whom he had assumed was virginal and pure on the day of his marriage has had an abortion after she had a liaison with a racketeer named Giacoppetti. Mary confesses this her husband, and asks his forgiveness. McLeod tells her in a misogynist rage that "he'd rather die than find out his wife is a tramp." He then asks if her infertility was caused by Schneider's abortion. In The Beat Generation Steve Cochran plays a Sergeant of Detectives Culloran, who is after a serial rapist dubbed "The Aspirin Kid" Stan Hess, (Ray Danton) a quasi "Beat" coffee house guru, who charismatically attracts women but is in reality a misogynist. The Kid's M.O. is to impersonate the friend of his victim's husband, boyfriend, etc., etc., by saying that he's there to pay back some money that he borrowed. He then gains entrance to their house by saying he needs a pen to write his check. Once inside he fakes a headache, and asks the victim for a glass of water so that he can take a aspirin. While the victim is out of the room he puts on leather gloves and lies in wait, attacking them from behind and raping them upon their return. Leaving his latest victim The Kid is lightly hit by a car driven by Culloran, when he jaywalks out in the road, he's picked up and innocently given a ride to an emergency room. While making small talk Culloran reveals that he's married but is working late nights on the Aspirin Kid Case. The Kid spots a letter addressed to Culloran and memorizes his address, writing it down. The Kids next victim is Culloran's wife. She subsequently gets a "bun in the oven", and Culloran begins to show his own misogynist streak, blaming the women victims for getting raped. His wife wants to get an abortion, which puts Culloran into destructive obsessed overdrive trying to solve the case so that he can find out The Aspirin Kid's blood type. This all alienates him from his wife and friends. Both Detective Story and The Beat Generation are examples of films with slim to none Noir visual stylistics, they are NIPOs, Noir In Plot Only type films that get listed in the Noir Canon more for the dark subject matter (at that time period) of their plots than for the cinematography. The Beats are your stereotypical Maynard G. Krebs beatnik's dressed in torn sweatshirts, goatees, black sweaters, berets, sunglasses, horizontal striped shirts, ponytails and leotards, Some are grooving to the jazz some are stone still. Other's walk around dazed carrying abstract sculpture. Stan Hess dressed in black is sitting at a table reading Schopenhauer. Meg a blonde in spaghetti straps is beside him. We get full frontal beatnik jive dialogue heavily seasoned with the culture's Zeitgeist of impending nuclear destruction. The huge ensemble cast has some standouts, watch for Jackie Coogan (pre Uncle Fester from The Addams Family) in a serious turn as Culloran's best friend and fellow detective Jake Baron. James Mitchum, doing his daddio's eyelids at half mast schtick. Sexpot Mamie Van Doren as a divorced women on the make who turns the tables on Mitchum, Maila Nurmi (Vampira, pre Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space) reciting poetry with a pet rat on her shoulder, Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom the wrestling beatnik, and a guy billed as just Grabowski. The film has a bit of cross dressing humor as the Coogan and Sid Melton in drag try to bait a lovers lane bandit . It also seems to cram in some of society's in things of 1959, hula hoops, California mussel beach blanket culture, even references to TV's Sea Hunt with a scuba sequence, I'm surprised it didn't have some surfing too. Like a lot of Hollywood films that attempted to replicate the 60's you get the impression that the Beat Generation wasn't just a man with a goatee and beret reciting nonsensical poetry and playing bongo drums or a base without strings, while pony-tailed babes wearing black leotards dance in abandonment. lol. Soundtrack is Jazz, torch songs, bongo music. As a visual Noir it's a 5/10 it's pretty hard to get that claustrophobic atmosphere in a film shot in 2.35:1 CinemaScope, as an entertaining window onto a frozen moment of a quickly changing culture filtered through a Hollywood reflection 7/10. Crazy Man, Dig?

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.

Set in the late fifties, this is a tale of misguided youths, music, sex, crime, beer and police. There's a crafty script with modern dialogue and social statements. The beatniks make for a easy frame and alibi for a psychotic rapist hell bent on revenge to all women and square father-like men.Behind the facade of crime there is a real police story and the inner-conflict between the cops, criminals, and victims are portrayed. Beautiful women both submissive and dominant mask the ugliness of both male characters cop and criminal. At the end we are not sure which side wins out. Beat Generation?