Beatniks !

Bad movies we love, or at least want to laugh at: THE SUBTERRANEANS - no wonder its never shown these days, but  I sourced a copy a while back, and wrote about it then - Trash label - but we had another look at it the other day, and its so hilariously awful I just have to mention it again.

I had never heard of director Ranald McDougall until now - he also directed Joan's QUEEN BEE as well as this lulu: has anyone actually seen 1960's THE SUBTERRANEANS ? - its never been shown here in the UK for as long as I can remember: Its an MGM production from Arthur Freed - his last - which tackles Jack Kerouac's beat novel with George Peppard, Leslie Caron and Roddy McDowell (left) as beatniks! "Love among the new bohemians" indeed! The female lead was black in the novel, but somehow ended up French in the movie - The mind reels.

 ....it must have had a good jazz score though! (with Previn, Mulligan etc).  Beatniks of course must have been a dangerous new exotic cult at the time, so the movies had to get in on the act and present them on screen ...

Poor Leslie Caron; she was GABY, and LILLI and GIGI and had just been filming George Bernard Shaw with Asquith and Bogarde (THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA, as reviewed recently, Bogarde label), now she was saddled with this, before being FANNY. Peppard at least had that gig at TIFFANYS lined up with Audrey ....