The Subterraneans

Reviled by the original Beats, most notably Allen Ginsberg, and now virtually unobtainable in video form (let alone DVD) from any source, The Subterraneans has been derided as a Hollywood hatchet job bearing very little resemblance to the Kerouac book on which its based. The plot is simple, disillusioned writer, George Peppard, explores the 'subterranean' depths of San Francisco's North Beach district circa 1959 looking for anybody who will share his jaded perspective on life and finds romance amongst the Beatniks in the form of slightly touched Leslie Caron (original book's black female love interest is replaced by a French girl for Hollywood palates). Script is similarly lightweight, with intermittent nods to the language of the Beats and a clumsy attempt to re-create the famous Ginsberg "Howl" reading, but nevertheless the movie as a whole is stangely compelling in a historical sense, not as a faithful representation of Beat culture, but rather as a view on how the Beats were commoditized and became 'Beatniks'. If you have an interest in the popular culture of the time, daddio, then like, seek this flick out, if you're a serious Beat scholar, stay away.

This MGM film starred the lovely Leslie Caron so great in MGM Musicals such as American In Paris and Gigi and two up and coming MGM stars: George Peppard and Jim Hutton. Both Peppard and Hutton had 7 year contracts and MGM was still at the time of filming the Number 1 studio in Hollywood. Howard Strickling a maestro of PR set George Peppard to be in the mold of a Spencer Tracy: A great Actor, and Hutton who has a brief role as a combination in the vein of Jimmy Stewart and Jack Lemmon. See this movie just too see Peppard as a lading Man and Hutton in a brief role

This movie about the "beatnik" scene in the Bay Area fails. Leslie Caron is miscast and George Peppard made the most of this casting to move onto Home From The Hill with 2 other MGM contract players: Luana Patten and George Hamilton, Jim Hutton would team up with another MGM contract star Paula Prentiss in Where The Boys Are, a smash hit also starring other MGM contract stars Yvette Mimieux. George Hamilton and a great actress Paula Prentiss whom Hutton would mean up with at MGM: Where The Boys Are, Honeymoon Machine, Bachelor in Paradise and Horizontal Lieutenant. Jim Hutton did A Period Of Adjustment with Jane Fonda at MGM and then went on a 15 month suspension until MGM released him from his 7 year contract. Hutton was supposed to do the role Russ Tamblyn did in How The West Was Won but the deal fell thru. Hutton got his release from MGM having to do Looking For Love, a Connie Francis film which had cameos by the MGM stars Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton and his former co star Paula Prentiss.

MGM was a great studio in the early 60's.

about an age and not about a period. about few people and a too strange love story. about a world very far by Kerouac novel and the real facts. so, only a sketch. and it is not really an error if its ambitious are not so high. because the basic bizarre piece in this movie it is the cast. why few not bad actors for a poor exercise to present an age ? than - the script ( the dialogs are almost fake ). not the lat, the story - chaotic and too pink. short, it is a trip of Hollywood in middle of a kind of revolution. but the reality is not part from its rules so, the result is far to be admirable. only interesting ingredient - the performance of Roddy McDowall. but it is not enough to be more than a sketch for a decent social portrait.

If this film is hard to get a hold of, it's probably because anyone involved in it has tried to buy up and destroy the prints. Never mind the faithlessness to Kerouac -- this is about as close to the spirit and vision of Kerouac as Howdy Doody is to Shakespeare -- the script provides ample opportunities for the humiliation of actors, opportunities which, unfortunately are exploited to the full. George Peppard is miscast as a soul-searching intellectual writer, but seems to have the soul of a soft, fluffy robot. Roddy MacDowell doesn't speak his lines, but declaims them. The otherwise charming Leslie Caron has the depth of a neurotic paper doll. It's a kind of exploitation film: instant beatnik, just add intelligence. My compliments to anyone who can watch this for five minutes without cringing.

I just viewed this film for the first time. Janice Rule and Leslie Caron are excellent given the superfluous material; George Peppard is stiff and unconvincing.

If you take this film literally, the Beats represented party-loving, self-serving hedonists, rebelling against society with no particular purpose. In fact, the Beats and their literature provided a needed counterpoint to the conformity and staid complacency of American life in the 1950s. They were the forerunners of the Hippies, for sure.

Despite a shallow story line, the film is of historical interest as to how Hollywood (and maybe mainstream America) viewed the Beat generation in 1960, when the film was released.

The music is absolutely marvelous - it's great to see and hear jazz giants like Gerry Mulligan (also in an acting role), Art Pepper, Art Farmer and Shelly Manne.

A true period piece, worth seeing - once.