The Beat Generation Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

The Beat Generation Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 29, 2015

They say that everything old is new again, and that may help to explain why my hometown of Portland seems to be Ground Zero for a resurgence of sorts of a “type” that is more identified with the late 1950s and early 1960s than with our incredibly modern 21st century world. Of course, the name of this type has changed, but many of the behavioral tics are the same. A penchant for hanging out in coffee houses listening to non-Top 40 music? Check. A tendency toward little stylistic touches like goatees and/or soul patches? Check. A general disdain for the so-called Establishment and traditional ways of making a living or indeed even living a life? Check and double check. A woman hating guy condescendingly giving a chick the brush off while talking about "this cat Schopenhauer"? Well, I'll have to get back to you on that one, but my hunch is: probably. We call them “hipsters” now, to be sure, but aren’t the many “supercool” denizens of this rainy burg just recycled beatniks? (And considering the reigning ethos of the Pacific Northwest, it’s a good thing they’re recycled.) Even given the understanding that whether you call them beatniks or hipsters, there are certain similarities between the two, it’s a bit hard to reconcile the general perception of this type with the portrayal of same in 1959’s The Beat Generation, a film which begins with an indelibly “hip” but decidedly un-beatnik Louis Armstrong belting out a tune informing the youngsters in the audience (both on screen and assumedly in the movie theaters as well) that they’re “headed for the blues.” The Beat Generation was yet another teen exploitation flick from the febrile producer Albert Zugsmith, a man probably best remembered today for such efforts as High School Confidential and Sex Kittens Go to College, even if he somehow also managed to help crank out everything from The Incredible Shrinking Man, Written on the Wind and (perhaps most incredibly) Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil. While The Beat Generation evidently wants to be a rousing exposé of youth culture run amok, it’s actually more of a portrait of a disturbing psychopath who serially rapes a bunch of women while a hapless police detective tries to bring him to justice. Unavoidably smarmy at times, The Beat Generation is nonetheless surprisingly potent at times, especially when it delves into subject matter like abortion, something that may well have shocked 1959 audiences more than any perceived misadventures by teenagers.

Perhaps at least a little oddly, The Beat Generation is neither a traditional Zugsmith teen (or young adult) exploitation flick nor really even about its titular aggregation. It instead is really an examination of the similarities between a black hearted guy named Stan Hess (an at times feral Ray Danton), that aforementioned Schopenhauer fan, and a cop named Dave Culloran (Steve Cochran), a seemingly decent guy who nonetheless has some shadows haunting his soul and who becomes more unhinged as the film trundles along.

Rather shockingly graphic (at least for the 1950s), the film details Stan’s serial rapes of married women, one of whom is Dave’s wife Francee (Fay Spain). Before that attack, though, there’s another one where Stan finagles his way into the apartment of a pretty middle aged woman named Joyce Greenfield (Maggie Hayes) on the pretense of writing a check to pay back a loan her husband supposedly made him. He feigns a headache, asking for a glass of water, which gives him the chance to quickly don a pair of leather gloves and then viciously assault Joyce. The camera admittedly pans away, but not before Stan tells Joyce he likes it when she fights him, an admission which is followed by some ugly sound effects of male fists pummeling female flesh.

It’s actually after that horrifying assault that Stan and Dave’s paths originally cross, when Dave ends up giving Stan a ride after almost hitting him. It’s in Dave’s car that Stan actually spies Dave’s address, and it’s Dave own casual conversation which reveals that there’s a wife at the Culloran abode, setting the scene for the later attack. In the meantime, it’s of course Dave who’s called to investigate the Greenfield case, and it’s here that some of Dave’s darker aspects first become noticeable, when his questioning of the bruised and battered woman is not exactly a model of compassion.

While only tangentially involving beatniks, courtesy of a hangout Stan frequents, the film thus far is a suitably bleak and actually kind of shocking, if unseemly, quasi-noir. But once Francee is attacked and even worse finds out later she’s pregnant, the film goes off in some frankly amazing directions, with some rather fascinating debates about abortion, since Francee can’t be certain who the father is. It’s also at this point that Dave’s policing starts to take on an obsessive quality, even as Stan plays a cat and mouse game which involves one of Stan’s lackeys, the appropriately named Jester (Jim Mitchum, Robert’s son). The eclectic (to say the least) cast also includes Vampira as a mouse stroking poetess, Mamie Van Doren as a loose woman Dave uses to bait Stan, and Jackie Coogan as a cop (Coogan is also credited as the film's dialogue director).

The Beat Generation seemingly wanted to cash in on the then at least occasionally lucrative teen exploitation craze, but seen now from the vantage point of over fifty years, the film offers an at times chilling portrayal of a sociopath (Stan) and a near-sociopath (Dave). There’s some undeniably ridiculous material here, including an undersea battle capping the film (don’t ask), but it’s really unusually direct about some of the issues the characters need to confront. Performances are largely compelling as well, with Danton flat out frightening as the vicious Stan and Cochran doing some nicely nuanced work as Dave fights to stay on the straight and narrow path even as he can’t quite corral his feelings of disgust after his wife has been violated.

The Beat Generation Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Beat Generation is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is another largely commendable catalog release from the MGM archives, though it's perhaps incrementally less sharp and offers slightly more damage to the elements than Olive's recent release of Zugsmith's High School Confidential. There are fairly ubiquitous hairline scratches, nicks, flecks and minus density popping up throughout the presentation, but nothing that rises to the level of a major distraction. Grain is generally natural looking, but does tend to spike and occasionally clump, especially in some of the long nighttime sequences, as well as the underwater footage. As is Olive's standard operating procedure, there have been no restorative efforts made here, but similarly no digital manipulations of the image harvest.

The Beat Generation Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Beat Generation features a fulsome sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix which offers excellent support for the sometimes rousing music as well as the quieter dialogue moments. The film does have some disturbing sound effects, as mentioned above with regard to the attacks, and those are also rendered with a fair amount of punch (no pun intended) and vividness. There are some occasional brief issues with minor distortion, but nothing that rises to the level of an overriding concern.

The Beat Generation Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements offered on this Blu-ray disc.

The Beat Generation Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's probably best to divorce The Beat Generation from an preconceptions that linking it to some of Zugsmith's (and others') teen exploitation flicks might create. While not completely successful, and weighted down by an unavoidable smarminess due to the subject matter, the film is nonetheless an often quite riveting portrayal of a vicious criminal and an unbalanced policeman. The whole abortion angle makes The Beat Generation one of the more fascinating films of its era, and it's notable that this element is not really played for any overt shock value (at least none beyond the plot's already inherently shocking qualities). Technical merits are generally very good and The Beat Generation comes Recommended.