jakob13 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.

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.

Panamint On one level this movie is sort of pop psychology trying to make a subtle distinction between the slippery slope of ordinary misogyny (non- violent here) and serial rapist (extreme brutality of course). The contrast between two men with these hang-ups in relation to women seems an odd basis for a film script, but then this whole movie is pretty odd.The attempt at a psychological overall theme fails to rise above mere exploitation in this 1959 b-movie time capsule complete with Mamie Van Doren at her bleach blondest and flirtatious best. Also you have some beatniks who say "lets have a hootenanny". And dig these cats as they really do have a hootenanny. Its a crazy beat event as self-absorbed oddball characters endeavor to find nihilistic and existential new ways to waste their time and practice the fine art of hanging out. Watchable chaos ensues as a campy b-movie police manhunt goes on literally in its midst. This is 1959 b-movie heaven, complete with Louis Armstrong and an inexplicable role for Cathy Crosby that is so out of place it actually adds more camp to the camp.Fay Spain carries the acting load as she did in numerous movie roles and countless fine and noticeable performances in TV dramas. She was a true acting talent. Steve Cochran, once one of those incredibly beautiful male actors who populated 1940's and 50's movies, is clearly aging here and gives a sort of disinterested, hangdog performance that is not among his best. Ray Danton, another movie stud of the era, is convincing as the psycho, but unfortunately is only allowed to perform at a strictly b-movie level.Fay Spain is the real deal. Aside from her this is just a fast-paced psychological mumbo jumbo of a b-movie that is priceless as a time capsule of the age.

melvelvit-1 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.