I’m a sucker for movies made during certain fads of the
past. It doesn’t matter if it’s the roaring twenties, the hippie movement of
the sixties or the beat generation as found in this movie. What becomes
fascinating in watching these movies is that they capture a moment in history
that will forever be there to watch on film (or in this case disc) for everyone
to see.
THE BEAT GENERATION opens with a group of beatniks listening
to of all people Louis Armstrong. How and why he ended up here I’ll never know.
We get to meet Stan Hess (Ray Danton), the drifting son of a well to do father
on his fourth marriage. There is no love lost between father and son and it
becomes apparent that this conflict is what drives Stan when the next time we
see him he is posing as someone else, pretending he owes money to a woman’s
husband who is away on a business trip. In reality what he is there for is to
con his way into her house and then brutalize and rape her. Keep in mind this
movie was made in 1959 so the term rape is never mentioned but is painfully
obvious, especially later.
As Stan is making his way home he hitches a ride with a
driver who turns out to be Dave Culloran (Steve Cochran), a local police
detective. The two strike up a conversation, Dave lets him know where he lives
and drops him off at what he thinks is Stan’s house. Of course it turns out
that Dave is the detective assigned to the case. Dave’s partner Jake (Jackie
Coogan) lets his partner know that he seems to have a problem with women, due
mostly to past experiences Dave has had. But now with a loving wife at home,
Jake suggest he take it easy on the victims rather than press them for
information.
We get a glimpse of Dave’s home life with Francee (Fay
Spain), his doting wife. As he asks her about her day it becomes obvious that
he has a hard time leaving work at the office. His conversation with her sounds
more like an interrogation and she calls him on it. Swearing to back off he
shows her more affection and steps back on his way of talking to her.
That all gets turned upside down when Dave gets a call from
Stan telling him that he’ll turn himself in if Dave meets him at a local
beatnik club. While Dave and Jake wait for him to show, Stan shows up at Dave’s
house and Francee turns into his next victim. Blaming himself for this, Dave
swears he will catch Stan if it’s the last thing he does.
Most of the movie then plays out as a detective story with
one exception. Francee ends up being pregnant. Alluding to the possibility
earlier to Jake’s wife, she now wonders if this is Dave’s child or the
rapist’s. In talking with Dave about it she knows he could never accept the
child as his own and decides she wants to abort the child without Dave’s
consent. This becomes the secondary story in the film, a taboo topic that gets
an adult look at the problem I doubt most films from the time dealt with.
Is this a great movie? Perhaps not but it is an entertaining
one, more so than I expected. The discussion of the themes in the film seem far
ahead of their time coming from 1959. It’s more serious than some would have
been and yet deals with it on both and emotional and moral grounds. Maybe it’s
my naïve way of looking at film from the period but I honestly can’t think of
many movies dealing with these issues short of the scandal scare flicks used to
caution teens.
The acting here isn’t Oscar worthy but holds up fairly well.
This is the second film I’ve seen Cochran in lately (THE BIG OPERATOR being the
other) and I’m surprised he didn’t become more well-known. He does a solid job
in the roles he plays and turns in a great performance. While Danton may have
been the biggest name in the picture his performance is hampered only by the
dialogue he’s given to speak. With a ton of beatnik slang tossed in for his
character everything from daddy-o to an overuse of the word “man” comes from
him non-stop. Also seen is James Mitchum, son of Robert Mitchum, in only his
third movie as Stan’s best friend and cohort in crime. Prominent in the ads for
the movie is Mamie Van Doren who actually has a small role here but whose
presence made it a must for teens.
As I said the most interesting part about movies like this
is getting a glimpse of what life was like at the time it came out. It becomes
as much a history lesson as it does an entertaining movie. Some might think of
the film as quaint, a bit of fluff that barely covers the complex issues at
hand. But as I’ve said before when watching movies from years ago the best way
to understand them is to put yourself in the position of the audience of the
time rather than how things are today. When you do that with a movie like this
one it becomes shocking on a whole different level. Today it would merit a
movie on Lifetime but then it was a controversial topic. In the end if you like
movies that display the more recent past then you might want to pick this one
up for your collection. While there are no extras to talk about, Olive Films
has done a great transfer to blu-ray on this one.
Click here to order.
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