Beatnik Fest at American Cinematheque Egyptian - March 30-31

[Not Afraid]

Sounds promising!

MOVIES & THE BEATS, PT. 1 – VENICE BEACH, HOLLYWOOD, NEW YORK & BEYOND

March 30 – 31 at The Egyptian Theatre

Sometime in the early 1950’s, borne out of the Atomic Era and a post-WWII malaise, a new social and literary movement began to make itself felt. At the time, New York writers such as Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Gorso and San Francisco poets like Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McLure, et.al., were making their presence known. Coffee houses sprang up in big cities – especially urban centers on the west and east coast - places where the intellectually and spiritually disenfranchised could come to socialize, read poetry, exchange ideas about the state of the world and "drop out." Somewhere along the line, society – and members within the inner circle themselves – started to call these drop-outs "beatniks." There were obvious, cliché visual signifiers - berets, sunglasses, narrowly-cut black slacks and - for many of the gentlemen – goatees. No matter that virtually none of the famous writers associated with the movement had ever been glimpsd in such get-ups. Television programs featured comic beatnik skits or characters (witness Maynard G. Krebs of the "Dobie Gillis" show). But, surprisingly, there were comparatively few references in the movies. One might see a glimpse or two of something bohemian in a musical comedy like FUNNY FACE, but, unlike the droves of published material in novels and literary journals, there were no great cinematic beat statements being made by Hollywood filmmakers. The few films that were released by the major studios tended toward the wildly exploitive (THE BEAT GENERATION) or the feeble (MGM’s amusingly pathetic attempt to adapt Kerouac’s THE SUBTERRANEANS with George Peppard and Leslie Caron). Then there were fitfully entertaining, but wildly misrepresentative drive-in pictures such as THE BEATNIKS, THE BLOODY BROOD and THE REBEL SET, efforts which equated beatniks with psychopathic criminals. Yet again other lower profile, lower budget films came close to the real thing – Curtis Harrington’s wistful and haunting NIGHT TIDE, set in the back alleys and boardwalks of Venice Beach and Santa Monica, Roger Corman’s satirical horror comedy BUCKET OF BLOOD, and Shirley Clarke’s THE CONNECTION, a gritty view of the subcultures of the cool jazz musician and the druggy hipster intersecting in early 1960’s New York. Please join us for two days of movie beat culture, including rare shorts shot in the heyday at Venice Beach as well as a glorious slide show compiled and hosted by authors Domenic Priore and Brian Chidester.

Series compiled by Chris D., Dominic Priore and Andrew Crane.

Special Thanks: Todd Wiener; Brooke Allen; Amy Lewin/MGM Repertory; Emily Horn/Paramount.





Friday, March 30 – 7:30 PM

Beatnik Beach Night

NIGHT TIDE, 1961, 84 min. Director Curtis Harrington’s debut indie feature is a masterpiece, a haunted, poetic hymn to the dark world of the fly-by-night carnival, lonely midways at dawn and the siren call of eon’s-old passion spawned by the devils of the deep blue sea. In a fond nod to Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s CAT PEOPLE, at-loose-ends sailor Johnny Drake (Dennis Hopper) falls in love with sideshow mermaid, Mora (Linda Lawson) who may just somehow be related to the real thing. Shot in and around Santa Monica and Venice Beach in the beat culture’s heyday, the film continues to exert a strong spell, and is brimming with the heady atmosphere of bygone coffee houses, poet hipsters, languid jazz and bongos on the shore. With Luana Anders, Gavin Muir. "…captures an intangible quality of what Santa Monica was like in the early 60s. Quite apart from Los Angeles, it was a quiet residential community. The funfair pier has just the right air of seedy despair about it. Everyone seems to be living 'just off' the mainstream."Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant Preceded by the shorts: "Venice In The Sixties" (aka "The Beat") 15 min. Dir. Leland Auslender. Originally shot for a television show and never used, this is essentially a full-color look inside the atmosphere of the Venice West coffeehouse, its various sections, activities and people; "The Beat From Within: Reflections of a Beatnik" 10 min. Produced by Ralph Morin and directed by Tom Koester, this short covers a day in the life of a Venice beatnik in glorious black 'n' white. Plus: Authors Domenic Priore and Brian Chidester (Beatsville, Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece, Dumb Angel #4: All Summer Long) will present a unique one-hour slide show documenting the Beat Generation's long stretch over the Greater Los Angeles area between 1956 and 1966, via visuals of coffeehouses and jazz joints from the Sunset Strip to Malibu, Venice and Newport Beach. Legendary locations only heard about in books or in liner notes, from the Gas House and nearby Venice West Cafe, to the Unicorn and Shelly's Manne-Hole in Hollywood, the Lighthouse and Insomniac in Hermosa Beach, then all the way down to Cafe Frankenstein (owned, operated and painted by Burt Shonberg). Arists from John Altoon to Eric "Big Daddy" Nord gave these places a colourful splash, as did the wide variety of Folk singers and poets who performed on their stages.





Saturday, March 31 – 7:30 PM

Beat Culture – Hollywood And New York

Double Feature:

THE BEAT GENERATION, 1959, 95 min. "The wild, weird world of the Beatniks! ...Sullen rebels, defiant chicks...searching for a life of their own!" Shrewd producer Albert Zugsmith (TOUCH OF EVIL, THE TARNISHED ANGELS) latched onto the then-current catch phrase describing a new movement of jazz buffs, literary rebels and societal drop-outs to use as a movie title and backdrop for his entertaining and exploitive sleaze noir directed by Charles Haas (GIRLS TOWN, THE BIG OPERATOR). Steve Cochran is a tough-as-nails L.A. detective on the trail of serial rapist, The Aspirin Kid (Ray Danton), a path that leads him through coffee houses, poetry readings and assorted sin dens. When Cochran’s own wife (Fay Spain) ends up a victim, we see our hero assuming a few misogynistic traits in common with villain, Danton; just one of the few surprising turns in Richard Matheson and Lewis Meltzer’s bizarre, hardboiled script. The eye-popping cast includes Mamie Van Doren, Margaret Hayes, Louis Armstrong, James Mitchum, Jackie Coogan, Vampira (reciting some twisted poetry) and "Slapsy Maxie" Rosenbloom as a wrestling beatnik! NOT ON DVD. Discussion in between films with actress Mamie Van Doren.

THE CONNECTION, 1962, 110 min. While the big Hollywood studios couldn’t manage anything more genuine than our whacked-out co-feature THE BEAT GENERATION or the totally anemic, wrong-headed adaptation of Kerouac’s THE SUBTERRANEANS (which was unavailable for screening), Shirley Clarke’s experimental drama from New York had certified "beat" roots and a down-and-dirty style. Using a film-within-a-film framework, Clarke follows a clueless cinema verite documentarian as he records the waiting game played by hep jazz musicians congregated in an apartment in anticipation of their next fix. Director Clarke remains a relatively unsung, now virtually forgotten champion of early independent film. Operating in the same universe as John Cassavetes, she later produced such unassuming masterpieces as THE COOL WORLD and PORTRAIT OF JASON. With many award-winning shorts already to her credit, THE CONNECTION was her debut feature and won her wide critical acclaim. The great ensemble cast includes Warren Finnerty, Roscoe Lee Browne, William Redfield, Carl Lee, Jerome Raphael, Barbara Winchester and Giorgia Moll. "What's most radical about Clarke's movie isn't the depiction of the needle and the damage done but her critique of the burgeoning American cinema vérité movement and its claims of capturing "the truth." – Melissa Anderson, The Village Voice NOT ON DVD.

[innerSpaceman]

Wow, Night Tide sounds fascinating. Let's all don beatnik beachwear and go-man-go!!

[Snowflake]

Cast my vote in the affirmative since I'll be in and around Hotel Swank at this time.

[innerSpaceman]

Dare I say ... we should make this our official March Swanking???

[Ghoulish Delight]

Argh, what's with the convergence on that weekend? Already packed full of lashbear madness, plus ramping up for Passover, AND I might be sent out of town by work. Grrrrrrr.

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Dare I say ... we should make this our official March Swanking???

Go for it, if you'd like.

[innerSpaceman]

Well, much as I like the Dolby Photon Ballet (sort of) ... it just doesn't strike me as a mass appeal swanking (perhaps 'cause it's not massively appealing to me).


The Beat Film Festival, on the other hand, just reeks of swank. I mean, it's posted in the Beatnik forum of our board. How much more synergy can we expect??!


Plus, the guru and the unafraid one would be back in the States by that weekend, n'est pas? I'm concerned the Happy Haunts might have trouble with the schedule ... but I'm only willing to give them one jew pass for the weekend ... and they're already using it for the Mega Lasbear Meet.

It sucks that Ghoulish Delight might be out of town .... but if that means I might have a shot at Cadaverous Pallor being my beatnik chick date for the swanking, I'm slightly more in favor of the Beat Film Festival then ever before!



I say let's go for it. This seems like a Swanking made in Beat Heaven. (and a fine tribute, if I may say so, to the fondly recalled recent voyager to Beat Heaven).

[LSPoorEeyorick]

As much as I'd like to join up for this, that weekend is already overwhelming. The three or four hours that I'm not assembling our wedding invitations will be spent driving to and from Disneyland (and whatever remaining time will be spent at that meet.)

Yeah, we've got three months left, and although we're not going to be as elaborate as T and K, we're still doing everything by hand (including writing/creating/editing our film for the reception.) I don't expect you'll see me too much until after the 'moon.

[€uroMeinke]

Bucket of Blood! my favorite Roger Corman B-Movie - definate companion piece to Little Shop of Horrors.

[katiesue]

Ratz I have to be a Mom that weekend.