The Beat Generation is a 1959 American crime film noir from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 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.

Plot

In the opening scene, a "beatnik" named Stan Hess (Ray Danton) sits at a table in a coffee house with a woman who begs him for his affection. He scorns her, then encounters his father at another table, who announces his engagement to a younger woman who had also pursued Stan. He insults his stepmother-to-be and departs. Hess is established as a woman-hating habitué of a stereotyped and sensationalized beatnik scene.