inspectors71 You take your chances with the Digiview flicks at the Wal-Mart Dollar DVD kiosk. Every once in a while you find a small gem. Paul Frees' The Beatniks is not one of them.This is a grade Z, bottom-of-the-drive-in-bill waste of celluloid that deservedly got a MST3000 treatment. How does stuff like this get made? You could call the distributor, but most everyone involved in The Beatniks is probably dead and Digiview just scoops up cinematic flotsam and jetsam and puts in cheap disks for your viewing amazement. The trouble is it's simply so bad, so utterly inept that no one dare get mad at it.All one can do is--if one is so inclined to sit still for 70+ minutes--watch in slack-jawed amazement at cinematic awfulness.C'mon . . . it's only a buck!

Poseidon-3 Filmed for $2.67, this routine, rather predictable film is only good for a few unintentional laughs. Among the least of its many problems is that nothing whatsoever having to do with beatniks ever appears in the movie! The story concerns a group of troublemakers who don masks and rob the same store over and over in order to gain spending money. They then head to the coffee shop run by one of their girlfriend's mother and dance to the tunes on the juke box. One day, Travis is singing along with an instrumental number and is discovered by record producer Delaney who is trapped at the coffee shop with car trouble and is hanging on the pay phone, waiting for help. Instantaneously, Travis zips to the big city where he appears on a TV show, then, after making a huge splash, is set up the next evening to record his first album! Unfortunately, he's dragged along his entourage of Breck, Edwards, Wells and Kadler who proceed to trash his hotel room, coerce him into staying out late and generally wreck his chances at success. More drama unfolds as Travis attempts to rectify his and his gang's wrongdoings and make a go of his potential new life as a singing star. Travis is an attractive young man and ought to have had a slightly better career than he wound up with. His lip-synching to the songs is abominable, though. He obviously has no idea what he's doing. (The vocals he's singing to, though, are surprisingly good!) Kadler plays his girlfriend and is a dead-ringer for Ava Gardner, though lacking Gardner's charisma and talent as a performer. Edwards (who was in his mid-forties at the time of filming!) and Wells don't have a lot to do, but do try to come up with ways to pass the time (check out Wells attempting to recreate, in the mirror, a hairstyle on a magazine cover he's holding!) Delaney is all right at times, but doesn't appear to be well and, in fact, died before the film's release! Playing his secretary and the woman who steals Travis' heart is Terry. She gives a reasonable performance, but has distracting blew eyes. That is to say that one blew one way and one blew another! Careening though the film in a reprehensibly bad performance of hellacious ham is Breck. It's amazing that he ever worked again after this unbelievably rotten piece of indulgent, unappealing "acting". (Amazingly, he went on to craft the highly likable character of Nick on "The Big Valley" a few years after this.) One major supporting role (unbilled) is the boom mike, which looms into view with regularity. It's shabbily directed by voice-over artist Frees and he cast the film with virtually all fellow voice-over performers. It's clear why most of them stayed off-camera through the bulk of their careers! The camera-work is often pitiful with uncomfortable framing and close-ups which almost get the actors' entire faces in the frame. It's got a stale story, a bad script, mediocre acting and uncreative direction. The only thing it's really good for is as a curio to poke fun at, which the MST3K guys did gleefully. Viewers may be quite surprised to find out that Edwards supplied the voice of Thumper in Walt Disney's "Bambi" (not to mention that Wentworth, playing Kadler's mom, was Madam Mim in "The Sword in the Stone".)

paultrefzger-1 This movie, that was part of the Mystery Science Theatre 3K batch of "so bad, they're good" flicks. The film's worst offense is its title. There are no beatniks in the movie, but rather, juvenile delinquents (all over 2o, at least). By all Hollywood standards, this is a B movie, but I find it more entertaining than some movies that are nominated for an Oscar. Good looking lead Tony Travis is also a good actor, as is Peter Breck as a wise-cracking gang member who is supposedly psychotic but in the overall scheme of things comes across as funnier than menacing. Karen Kadler is fun too as Mr. Travis' gang girl-friend. Travis plays Eddie Crane, who in the course of the movie sings 4 times and sings well, from Sinatra-like ballads to early rock 'n' roll. There is a plot that involves shootings, and a jazz/ big band score...and a weak attempt at artsy filming but what we care about most is whether or not Eddie will side with the upright show biz people and leave his gang. Don't get serious about this film, just enjoy it!

darthmaulanie Bad! Bad! Horrible! Truly rotten! Even these words cannot express how severely awful this movie was. Still, if you are into "kitsch" like I am, then you'll probably love this flick purely for the song line gems ("My sideburns don't need your love.") and hokie one-liners ("Filthy fuzz!"). A film that is worthy enough to be featured on Mystery Science Theatre (and was) but not Oscar worthy. A flick to make even the most serious human giggle but not intentionally. A cinematic masterpiece you WILL soon forget. And by the way, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with beatniks. It follows more along the lines of The Jets in 'West Side Story' or what the T-Birds would have been like after Rydell High. People don't give enough credit to Ed Wood. It is movies like 'The Beatniks' that make me believe there is a treasure trove of rotten but awesome B-movies that even surpass 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'.