"THE SUBTERRANEANS"........ATTACK OF THE MGM BEATNIKS

The Subterraneans (1960)   Oh how we cherish every demented minute of this "you-gotta-be-shittin'-me" treasure........

                 In the history of cinematic trainwrecks, this one's a doozy..........

                 You begin to wonder if this movie's real......a horrific fantasy collision between Beat Generation novelist Jack Kerouac.........and the high-gloss MGM studio machine and their musical producer Arthur Freed ("Singin' In the Rain")

                   Who thought it was a good idea to bring these two together?

                   To begin with, corporate Hollywood's reaction to 'the Beats'  was nothing much but curious mockery....."these crazy kids who rage against society with their nutty poetry,bongo music, artwork and coffee houses? Hilarious!".......

                    You see the example in Bob Denver's 'Maynard G. Krebs' character in the 'Dobie Gillis' TV show.......(he reflexively screeches "work!!??" whenever that word comes up in conversation).......even Roger Corman had fun with roundly lampooning Beatniks in "A Bucket Of Blood"......(in which the Beats are so self-absorbed and pretentious, they blindly embrace Dick Miller's plaster covered corpses as brilliant artistic expression.......)

                    Kerouac's first novel about this generation, as seen through the warped fun-house mirror of ultra-slick CinemaScope and Metro-color, complete with composer Andre Previn's throbbing violins......well, let's just say it's a sight you can't unsee.........

                     George Peppard and a blonde-coiffed Leslie Caron hurl themselves into melodramatic fits as they play mis-matched raging lovers.........he's a failed young writer angry at the world and his own lack of inspiration.......and she's his damaged muse,  a manic-depressive love-starved nymph hangin' with the Beats in between therapy sessions.

                    You guessed it........MGM won't settle for anything less than bringing these nutty kids together for a climactic Happily Ever After smooch........in a zippy 89 minutes, their up-and-down affair plays like a frenzied satiric version of Peppard's wobbly romance,one year later, with Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast At Tiffany's"

                   And there's even more madness along the way in the film's depiction of the Beats themselves........a ridiculous, one-of-kind collection played by.....(no kidding here).....Roddy McDowell, Jim Hutton and 'Laugh-In's Arte Johnson.  Janice Rule plays their go-to muse, yet another overheated neurotic given to breaking out in interpretive dances to express her overall misery.

                   Cool jazz plays, bongos get beaten, Caron literally 'goes naked in the world' at Peppard's enraged suggestion and the MGM studio orchestra swells with contentment as if they're been following Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds.........and we swear we're not making this stuff up......

                  On its own merits, we'd normally hand out Zero Stars........but "The Subterraneans" occupies a special place in the Valhalla of Guilty Pleasure Atrocities.......judged on that basis, no lover of uniquely disastrous cinema could award this anything less than  Minus 3 Stars                      (-***)..............or as this film's character's would tell you....."like, dig it, man.....it's out there..."