The Beat Generation

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.

An obsessed cop tries to track down the "Aspirin Kid," a beatnik serial rapist. MGM was not a noir studio, and I don't really know if you could call this noir but if it is, it's one of the most insane noirs I've ever seen. Like crazy, man. I hardly know where to begin. Dig this groovy cast, Daddy-O... Vampira, Mamie Van Doren (who steals the show) and real-life husband Ray Anthony, Charles Chaplin Jr., James Mitchum (a dead ringer for the old man), Jackie Coogan and performances by Cathy Crosby and Louis Armstrong. I think I can safely say it's the only noir that climaxes at a beat "hootenanny" where a guy randomly tries to wrestle the hero, who later chases the bad guy underwater while dodging harpoons. Yeah, this sh*t is nuts. The portrayal of beatniks is the standard Hollywood ridicule and parody. Has there ever been a positive image of beatniks in an American film? Even FUNNY FACE is pretty condescending. Steve Cochran (looking quite Clooney-esque at this stage in his career) is practically psychotic, setting up an interesting parallel with the villain (Ray Danton, turning the sleaze up to 11) as both are portrayed as misogynistic creeps. Being a late-period noir, there's more freedom to openly address subjects like rape and abortion. Although there is no graphic imagery, the screams of the victims are harrowing enough. The film is campy and trashy and yet also has a moral center... one which backfired for me when it came to the vile anti-choice message. It's hard to make a case against hatred towards women while also telling them they need to keep their rape-spawned babies. It was a pre-Roe v. Wade world, though. The Van Doren character sends mixed messages about the film's stance as well.

This review is rambling because frankly, I don't know what to make of this movie. It's all over the place. In most respects it's pretty bad but also weirdly compelling, and sometimes even hilarious, whether intentionally or not. I can't honestly say I liked it, but I sure as hell couldn't stop watching it.

Stereotyped and clichéd exploitation film about a serial rapist known as the Aspirin Kid (Ray Danton), who hangs out with a group of beatniks while continuing to victimize attractive suburban housewives. Set in beatnik bars and on the beaches of LA, with some humorous dialog and a misogynistic cop played by Steve Cochran who tracks down the Kid after his own wife becomes a victim, the film has a refreshing originality, though generally it is laughably ridiculous, with its goateed beatniks staring off into space while listening to recorded car crashes, jazz, and the worst Beat poetry ever recited. With Mamie Van Doren, and a cast of several familiar faces that would crop up in Beach Party films, its nearly done in by what is now referred as camp, though there is enough of a story there to keep it moving along.

The Beat Generation exploits that post-war phenomenon of feckless and disillusioned youth as a topical gimmick – superficial parody pitched at about the level of Bob Denver's Maynard G. Krebs on `The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,' the TV series which debuted the same year as this movie. Beatniks with bongo drums spout petulant poesy couched in a made-in-Hollywood argot thick with `daddy-o's,' `real gone's' and `cool cats.' (Out of all this comes at least one good line: `I don't need a mother, man – I've BEEN born.')

All of which is too bad, because here and there The Beat Generation shows glimmers of higher aspirations, as though it had started out a more ambitious project – a better movie – than it ended up. (The co-scriptwriter, Lewis Meltzer, has some solid noir credits on his resume, including The Brothers Rico.)

Out of the coffee houses comes rapist known as the Aspirin Kid (Ray Danton) who is terrorizing the community. On the pretext of repaying a debt, he shows up at the door of married women whose husbands are away, pleads a headache, and, while water is being fetched, slips on leather gloves and overpowers his angels of mercy.

On his trail is cop Steve Cochran, whose wife becomes the Kid's next victim. This proves more than Cochran can handle, who starts treating his wife the way he treated the other victims – as tramps who asked for it. It doesn't help when she finds out she's pregnant, presumably by the rapist. (And here the movie takes some very odd turns. First, there's discussion of a possible abortion – a subject that movies at this time touched upon, if at all, only in the murkiest of terms. Then there's a mini-sermon about the sanctity of life which sounds as if it had been written in Vatican City, though it turns out to be the movie's viewpoint as well.)

The theme of the misogyny shared by Cochran and the rapist remains the most compelling element of the story; if only it had been pursued more consistently or honestly. Instead, the film flies off on its peculiar tangents. One of them concerns Mamie Van Doren, whose assault is rudely interrupted, which is a shame, because she quite explicitly WAS asking for it, and stays miffed for the rest of the movie. Another concerns Jim Mitchum (Robert's son) as the rapist's accomplice; he inherited his father's looks, down to the cleft in his chin, but little of his talent. His idea of acting is to fling out his arms with every line he utters. Charlie Chaplin's son appears as well, not that it matters much, as does a very early Vampira, reciting an ode to parental hate with a white rat perched on her shoulder like a pirate with a parrot.

The Beat Generation suffered too many compromises to be classed as true noir, though it often is. Sadly, its chief interest is in preserving its grotesque travesty of that cultural phenomenon called the Beats – a travesty that has become more or less the official line when the beats are remembered at all.

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.