The Beat Generation

The Beat Generation (1959)

** (out of 4)

It's not often where I come across a movie and I'm not certain if I should call it a masterpiece for what it is or call it one of the worst films ever made. The story has a woman-hating detective (Steve Cochran) trying to track down a serial rapist (Ray Danton). A twist in the story is that the rapist raped the detective's wife who is now pregnant. THE BEAT GENERATION starts off fairly decent as it tackled some issues that weren't normally talked about in 1959 but then it just keeps getting weirder and weirder and in the end we're left with a complete mess of a film but at the same time it's an original mess. For the life of me I couldn't help but feel that this 95-minute movie was over three hours because of its slow pace and the fact that so much is going on. Not only do you have the investigation into the rape but you also follow the rapist and his friend (Jim Mitchum) as they try to plan more attacks, which leads to the friend falling for one of the attempted victims (Mamie Van Doren)!!! Even stranger is a subplot dealing with the raped wife who now wants to have an abortion. Throw in the detective/husband who is rather obsessive and hates women just like the rapist! Oh yeah, there's also the entire stuff dealing with the "beat generation," which includes an ending with a hootenanny. The rape scenes are handled with some class as we never really see anything but we do here the women scream in terror. The ending, which I won't spoil, is just downright crazy as none of it makes too much sense but then again, nothing that comes before it does either. The cast features a pretty good performance by Cochran and Fay Spain as his wife. Jackie Coogan appears as his partner and we get small performances from Louis Armstrong, Vampira, Max Rosenbloom, Ray Anthony and Cathy Crosby. And yes, Jim Mitchum is the son of screen legend Robert Mitchum. Believe it or not, Mamie Van Doren is actually given a real role here and she too turns in a good performance. THE BEAT GENERATION is a complete mess of a film but at the same time it's very original and somewhat daring for its time.