This photo was made to promote the 1959 drama The Beat Generation, and shows co-stars Steve Cochran and Fay Spain. The movie also starred the never-to-be-overlooked Mamie Van Doren. While you would think the movie deals with disaffected youth—and in some ways it does—it's largely about middle-aged detective Cochran trying to capture a serial rapist. We watched it five years ago. You can find out what we thought here. 

We think this is a beautiful promo poster for The Beat Generation, but don't let its colorful nature fool you—the movie is surprisingly dark. It uses the beatnik counterculture as a backdrop, but really has nothing to with it, except to belittle it. Steve Cochran plays a Los Angeles detective chasing after a serial rapist. Through a random encounter, the rapist becomes aware of Cochran and decides to make his wife a victim. Will he get away with it? You'll have to watch the film. We can tell you its most dramatic aspect involves whether a rape victim can obtain an abortion. The never explored details of how she plans to do it don't matter, because we know she'll change her mind.

You can't blame the movie for being predictable in that respect, though. How else was it going to go in the 1950s? The main thing to keep in mind about The Beat Generation is that it was mismarketed—deliberately, we suspect—to trick younger cinemagoers into forking over their cash for a Trojan horse message movie. We're not big fans of that sort of chicanery, but it's well produced, reasonably good, and as a bonus features Fay Spain, Irish McCalla, Robert Mitchum's brother Jim, and Steve Cochran's chest hair. The Beat Generation premiered in the U.S. today in 1959.