The Beat Generation is a 1959 American crime film starring Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren, with Ray Danton, Fay Spain, Maggie Hayes, Jackie Coogan, Louis Armstrong, James Mitchum, Vampira, and Ray Anthony. It is a sensationalistic interpretation of the beatnik counterculture of the “Beat Generation” (and is sometimes considered one of the last films noir to be produced.) The movie was also shown under the title This Rebel Age. The movie is about a “beatnik” who is a serial rapist, who is pursued by a police detective. The director was Charles F. Haas. Richard Matheson and Lewis Meltzer are credited with the screenplay.

It was known during production as The Beat and the Naked Generation.

Richard Matheson, who had written The Incredible Shrinking Man for Zugsmith, said The Beat Generation was based on a true story “about a guy who would meet salesmen and talk to them on the road, learn all about their houses, where they were during the day, what they did; then he would go and attack the wives while the salesmen were still on the road. I wrote it as a police procedure film. It ended up . . . well, you know how. I remember a copy of the script, many drafts in, where Zugsmith had meticulously crossed off police everywhere and had written in fuzz. It turned into absolute nonsense.”

black & white, mono, super widescreen. DVD-R comes packaged as shown in color DVD case, wrapped in plastic!