MovieChat Forums > The Beat Generation (1959) Discussion > Historic (and hysterical) Oddity

Historic (and hysterical) Oddity

posted 11 years ago by Zipper69
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Made in 1959 and released in 1960 the production clearly had no idea what the Beat Generation and beatniks were. The weird mixture of their (stoned?) actions whilst listening to Louis Armstrong and later Cathy Crosby in a showy evening dress must have been laughable even then.

Poor Jim Mitchum looked totally lost and seemed to have trouble remembering his lines and his cues.

Mamie van Doren was terrific eye candy and gave a passable performance, never in the A list of blondes she's outlasted them all!

Come on lads, bags of swank!

[–] karmacoupe 9 years ago

And more in the historic oddity dept.: in his book "Vanity of Duluoz" Jack Kerouac described his first wife Edie — who was the catalyst who introduced him to Lucien Carr and consequently Allen Ginsberg and Bill Burroughs — as looking like Mamie van Doren.

So, not only did the movie studio steal his phrase for the title — they used his wife's double for the lead female role!