Jumping on the bandwagon with Miss Beat, 1959 are these Venice, California pageant contestants:
Call me cynical, but I think some of these girls are not actually beatniks. I suspect that the girl on the far left just slapped on some eyeliner in the car after competing in the Miss Culver City pageant.
“‘Angel,’ A Brooklyn College student.”
via American Museum of Beat Art. I love that this girl would fit in perfectly in any hipster neighborhood today. Some things never go out of style, namely bangs and tight pants. Shoes might be a good idea, though.
Last night we watched A Bucket of Blood, which Roger Corman made in five days in 1959. It’s a comedy-thriller that satirizes the beatnik scene. Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) is a socially retarded busboy who wants to impress all the arty beatniks at the cafe where he works. Almost any further explanation of the plot could be construed as a spoiler.
I love movie beatniks!
L-R: Two scenesters – dig their headgear – who get most of the funny lines; nice girl Carla (Barboura Morris); snooty cafe owner Leonard (Antony Carbone); hapless chump Walter before his artistic transformation. I told Jon he should start dressing like Leonard and he said, “OK!”
After you become an artiste, you’re issued a beret, cigarette holder, paisley scarf and smoking jacket.
Walter tries to impress Alice, a beatnik pin-up who just came back from a trip to Big Sur to look for Henry Miller (she didn’t find him).
This was the first part of a black comedy triptych that Corman made between 1959-1961 (Little Shop of Horrors and Creature from the Haunted Sea followed). Originally released by American International Pictures, it now appears to be in the public domain. Note that there is no actual bucket of blood in A Bucket of Blood.