Added: 4 years ago
From: lupine22
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  • at the end, it looks like kerouc and ginsberg were pissed at the drunk guy bouncin that baby carriage off the curb or something though

  • who is the gal who took down her hair, later jack is talking to her outside waggin his finger?

  • @21navyseabee - It's Mary Frank, wife of the photographer and film-maker Robert Frank

  • 3:16

    wheel the perambulator Jack

    wheel it nice and slow

    don't get riled, mind the child

    careful as you go

    and when you reach the corner

    and when you cross the road

    just cock your front wheels up a bit

    and over goes your load!

  • love jack!!!!!!! love tht time wish i was there back there !!!

  • Oh, I love that time, I adore Jack Kerouac, one of my favourite writers! <3

  • Only a Glenn Beck fan (glennbeckfan10) could make such idiotic, uninformed statements regarding Kerouac, Ginsburg, and Burroughs. You couldn't recognize good fiction or poetry if it was being rammed up your ass. Good luck with your ignorance!

  • i was on the road by myself from east to west, canada. never slept once in a motel. my car was the best spot for me, especially in the rain. love this silent film. it really isn't silent at all.

  • The prototype East Village hipster family with kids.

  • Lucien Carr was the muse for these literary giants. I worked as a reporter and editor for UPI in the '70s and '80s before I left for a newspaper job and Carr was -- without any doubt -- the finest editor I ever worked with. A "nice job" from Lucien, and you'd be willing to work for free -- there was no higher praise.

  • @GenSherman666 - Thanks for that. Always good to know more about Lucien.

  • The beatniks of New York,1959. I loved the stride of the group, especially Allen Ginsberg, as they near the bar. You can just hear the bass and snare drums of Jazz music playing in the background.

  • @au574 Beatniks?! No! Beats - yes. There was a huge difference between the two.

  • IMO, The silence of the footage adds an eerie existential immediacy.

    Just who were these people? Did they touch on something, possess something that the world has been struggling to find since? Had been struggling to find before? What is that enigmatic power that emanates from everything the beat generation stood for and created?

  • No, I do not recognize any of the others, but I do know that Lucien Carr's son Caleb Carr went on to become and Author also. "The Alienist" I think was his first novel in a trilogy or series of serial killer type novels set in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century.

  • This is sad you can tell the camera man is like harrassing them.. they all look pissed off. First birth of the paparazzi man

  • thank you for putting this up!! it makes me want to go to New York now...

  • Jesus, this is so absolutely epic my mind could barely handle it...just fantastic footage...wow...

  • Lucian Carr

  • @OscarLimaMike I think Lucien Carr was at 1:10.

  • great historical artifact

  • cool footage

  • Interesting that Ben Schaefer suggested "Man B" might be Julius Orlovsky. A slight possibility that never occurred to me but alas it is not Julius.

  • Kerouac hat schon immer gern gesoffen. Hier wirkt er wie der Leader of the Pack, während Ginsberg verkappt rumstakst. Tolle Sache, danke!

  • this would be great if it had sound

  • I was born 20 yrs too late, or I woulda been there!

  • Why is they a bum stealing a pram haha... Good footage by the way. Makes me wanna travel back in them times if i could... i have to wait for 2035 to time travel :(

  • Oh,...I see,well Thank you again and Merry Christmas/Happy New Year to you and yours! :)

  • Thank you for answering back.If you dont mind,what relation are you to Jack Kerouac that you would have this amazing footage?

  • @RHBtheProgeny I'm no relation to Kerouac. The footage is stored in a New York film archive.

  • @lupine22

    Hello, I am looking for the original material for a documentary project.. would you mind giving me the name of the archive? It owuld be great help... Thank you very much...

  • Kerouac > all the other beats put together could ever dream of being.

  • the man at 1:50 may be peter orlovsky, allen's longtime partner . . .

  • @spidervac No, it's not Peter. I've seen many photos and footage of him, and they are nowhere near alike.

  • @lupine22 I think it is Peter's brother, Julius Orlovsky.

  • @bschafer714 If you check Google Images for "Julius Orlovsky" you'll find little similarity.

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  • great footage

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  • this is what dylan stole apart from what he took from the black man

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  • I would die to know what they are saying.

  • Damm it is taken right out of "On the road"

  • Who is the woman Kerouac talks to outside the restaurant?

  • @Armin4833 Mary Frank, the wife of film-maker Robert Frank

  • Who is the woman Kerouac talks to?

  • Who is the woman Kerouac talks with?

  • Beautiful footage of Kerouac and Ginsburg on the streets of NY, having a smoke and talking with friends, Lucien Carr hanging about.....an immensly important document of these transformative figures of their times. Jack pushing a baby in a stroller, that is beauty.

  • glennbeckfan10: "These guys were about as self-important as it gets."

    Can't speak for the others in the video, but I worked with Lou Carr for more than a decade and I never met -- in more than 30 years at UPI and newspapers -- a more gifted editor. Or a nicer person, for that matter.

  • great film document

  • Can someone point out Lucien Carr for me? Who is the person at 1:50? I wonder what Kerouac and Ginsberg were talking about when the man walked past at the end lol

  • @veyblu7 - Lucien Carr is best seen at 4:15, with his son Simon sitting on his shoulders.

    The person at 1:50 has not yet been identified - can anyone help?

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  • @lupine22 Since the person is in closeup and no one else is; since it seems spliced in; it's either the filmmaker or a friend of theirs is my guess. Filmmakers never get on film unless this way.

  • @GirLInSecondLife He's not "spliced in" - he can be seen walking into a doorway with Kerouac at 0:13. The filmmaker is thought to be Robert Frank. His wife and two children are seen in the footage, which was shot in the street where he lived.

  • @veyblu7 I am not sure but isn't that Gregory Corso???

  • @morrissey02  No.

  • where are all the hot beatnik chicks? these dogs are strictly from hunger.

  • This has to be before 1959. On the Road was out for 2 years and he's still dressed like a bum?

  • Cute how GInsburg (who's still bare-faced in "Pull My Daisy" is just STARTING to get a beard.

  • cool vid!

  • The young Boy sitting in Kerouac's lap from time 1:00 to 1:13 I believe is Young Paul Blake!The nephew he Loved Like a Son!if not,he sure looks like him!

  • @RHBtheProgeny - No, it's Caleb Carr, one of the sons of Kerouac's friend Lucien Carr. Caleb Carr is now a famous author, of 'The Alienist' and other books.

  • Crazy times, crazy cats... lots of freedom

  • I think Gary Oldman would make a great Kerouac in a movie. If not him, then that guy from No Country for Old Men -- what's his name, Javier Bardiem. They both have that solid look but with immense turmoil underneath.

  • this is great. remarkable footage. I wish there was sound, what a snapshot of a lost world.

  • THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE

  • hard to believe Jack would be dead in 10 years of when this film was shot.

  • @Kerouac4fan

    No, Dennis Hopper is not there, and neither is Wm S Burroughs. If Google tells you that they are, then it has goofed!

  • Thanks for the glimpse into the past.

  • here he is a cuban bonzo in brooklin

  • Ke guapo era Kerouac...

  • they were able to hire lip readers to find out what hitler and his cronies were saying in the silent film footage of them at the berghof. why is this not as important as that?

  • still, beat ... forever and ever

  • The little kid on Lucien's shoulders - is that Caleb Carr ?

  • @Tonymostrom - No, that's his brother Simon. You can see Caleb, with Jack and Lucien, at 1:00

  • Man, I would love to be a fly on the wall just eavesdropping on these brilliant people! This is great footage! If only it was 10-15 years earlier than this, that would be epic.

  • This isn't a jazz club after the war or a party in Colorado in the 40s. A certain sad self-conciousness is apparent throughout, even without sound. Fame had taken its toll; the scene had been dead about 10 years when this was shot. Kerouac wrote one or two decent books for teenagers, Ginsburg a fistful of OK poems, Burroughs stuff worthy of a full-fledged psych workup. Everything afterward is posturing and idle hero-worship, as if they were Kennedys or something.

  • @KeithStoneman

    That made me chuckle. These guys were about as self-important as it gets. Kerouac was decent, but it blows my mind that he's very famous. Difficult to make a case that he was a great writer. Ginsburg blah, but not hard to get why he is famous. Burroughs, a mad man and it's interesting to hear him discourse on some topics or play the comedian, but his stuff is unreadable. Corso and some of the others=ridiculous. I read them when I was a teen and regret wasting the time now.

  • The comprehension you have for groundbreaking literature is minimal at best... If you knew the times in which they were living, the writings of that time, and what was deemed to be obscenity and what was deemed socially acceptable, you would know they had to fight to get their works published. They were great writers with great minds and philosophies which extend far beyond that of conformist society.

  • @glennbeckfan10 you don't think Kesey was a great writer? How about the west coast writers and poets?

  • why do internet coments make people so agrasive, it's maybe because they feel so isolated, alienated, from their bretherin, just screemin' and kickin in theire cage,

  • kerouac looks like a fukn wierdo

  • This is easily my favourite video on YouTube. I watch it all the time.

  • @dragancer -- Maybe "wannabe" was too strong. The point is that many, like Schrittwieser, confuse the true Beats with their Beatnik followers. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and friends were NOT Beatniks. Kerouac in particular hated being called a Beatnik. That was my point.

  • @lupine22

    Yes, especially since 'Beatnik" was just a media created stereotype, which over simplified the complexity and the eclectic nature of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, et al for mass comprehension or should I saw "assumed" comprehension of their literary/artistic/cultural movement.

  • Funny how experts on humanity pop out of the wood. Watch the film and move on is what I'll do. Thanks for posting.

  • Damn, Ginsberg looks like he still bathed at this point in history.

  • Summer 1959...I was born, and just yesterday I finished reading "On the Road" ....never too late

  • @tubemistiquemoon Nope my mom is reading it now and she was born in '53.

  • @jclarencelove3rd

    BEATS WERE NOT COOL BECAUSE LIFE IS NOT COOL....A DRUNKEN PERSON IS A REAL PERSON(NOT TO BE USED) AND YOU ARE CHILD

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  • what a piece....

  • Where did you get this footage?

  • Thank you for posting this I have never seen video of Jack.

  • Yeah I recognise the bum carrying a cart at the end.

  • Lucien Carr comes in around 2:30 unless I didnt notice him earlier.

    I think anyways..

  • You're right -- 2:25

  • The beat generation. lol beatniks.

  • No, don't confuse the Beats and Beatniks. These are the original Beats. Beatniks were the wannabes who liked to imitate them. A bit like musicians and groupies ...

  • @lupine22 dont say wannabes man

    beatniks werent wannabes they were just a culture that developed out of the beat generation. Like hippies were.

    if you dont mean it like that, then your connotation does

  • Its funny, they were all high off of heroin and benzodiazepine

  • I get upset when people confuse the beats with the hippies. And I think that Henri Cru (Remi Boncoeur) is there

  • Kerouac is the genius.. only if we were all as gifted as his writing

  • what year is that?

  • @wownouser 1959

  • thanks :)

  • Wonderful historical footage, good to see this clip is still around. Despite the silent one can see their personalities come through.

  • Thanks for posting this it was great to see some of the beat generation. Their poetry inspires me to keep writing and I feel their spirit every time I visit NYC . Tom was right...it's their humanity that shines through.

    Kind regards, Peter

  • Wow Mary Frank is beautiful even though she doesn't have a Madison Avenue face.

    And Jack "rocking" the baby. Such a tender scene. The Beats just radiated humanity and they always made me feel more human.

    Stunning footage.

  • someday my poetry will overcome, isn;t that w3hat he meant?

  • the best men of my generation.....look hungry crazy for a midnight fix.

  • That last exchange was worth the price of admission.

  • Ha! Agreed.

  • ohman!

    I wish there was audio!

  • 2012 a new summer of LOVE on the rise !

  • 2012 the song - Harry Loco the missing link between the 60's and the future !

  • When was the last time you went down town and saw a buncha friends and their kids just hangin out chattin' in the street- talking to passerbys

  • That's the lower east side I knew, and only faintly can recall.

  • how could you tell?

  • How could I tell what?

  • that its the lower east side

  • The Bar was located at the corner of 9th Street and Third Avenue. That places is near the western border of the Lower East Side. I lived on 5th Street and Second avenue.

    Of course, nowadays this area is fashionably known as the "East Village," a completely phony name, created in the Sixties, to give the area a more "cool" ambience.

    Clear?

  • Cool, thanks.

    Kerouac wrote about the lower east side (i don't know shit about NYC)- is that the same thing?

  • fuck- forget it

  • Imagine, telling that tramp at 4:35 that one day at least 124,000 people around the world will watch him talking to one of the most respected American writers of the 20th century on a screen. He would've started charging people $2 for a just looking at him.

  • Ha, Luka, I like it!

  • at 1:09 glasses, white shirt having a drink.

  • Could someone please tell me which one is Lucien Carr?

  • Best seen at 4:15 with his wife and son Simon.

  • Sitting here trying to figure out where the Harmony Bar must've been. I'm guessing the north-east corner of 9th and 3rd, where the massive NYU residential hall has stood for the past twenty years or so, but if anybody has any other guesses (or, hell, remembers the place) let me know?

  • No, it's the NW corner. Kerouac wrote about the location in Visions of Cody, pages 5 & 6. Large apartment block there now.

  • Tennessee Williams at 4:15?

  • No.

  • What does it mean? What does it mean?

  • So what do we think for cameraman, John Cohen?

  • and just look at Kerouac you can tell its not 64

  • no.. no man.. your pist that you weren't there. maybe your pist because... fuck... just because. nothing means nothing anyway.... maybe you will feed the need to correct the grammar. sadly, we are going to die and children get old.

  • Dang, ain't that something. I bet Dylan would be pissed if he found out that Kerouac and Ginsberg were there, a few months before he arrived. Dang. They just missed each other.

    Although, I doubt much would have come of it, Dylan was known the.

  • Dylan in his earlier days actually was known to be around the Group frequently(kerouac, burroughs, ginsburg etc).

  • Just want to note that Allen Ginsberg Project blog estimated the year of this footage as 1964, when it is with near certainty 1959/60. Caleb Carr here (b.1955) is a little boy of about 4 or 5 and Cooper Union construction has just begun, well-documented as the year 1959-60.

  • Agreed absolutely. And the baby in the carriage (Ethan Carr, seen at 3:24) was born May 1958 ...

  • Ethan can't be more than 18 months old here, probably younger, so this is Summer or Fall of 1959.

  • there isn't any sound, right?...and that's one mutated-looking baby...

  • Right - no sound. That's what "silent footage" means.

  • Do you think they felt the tide of something BIG approaching?

  • I cannot believe Jack is walking into a bar! lol

  • This film is one of the great Youtube mysteries. It's a lost gem, unclaimed, remarkable. And I LOVE the Ballantine truck at 2:57!!

  • You, kiasmus, are the one who is ever a teenager.

  • You got me there, man. As a reward, I'm going to tell all beatnik admirers a secret. Kerouac is not dead. He took his typewriter and moved to an island in Hawaii with Elvis and Bruce Lee. They like playing backgammon and practising kenpo karate. They have developed parapsychological powers which enable them to move the island and... Oops, I was about to reveal the ending of "Lost".

  • Can I go live on the island? PLEASE??

  • Kérouac is a poet not a beat... Ginsberg and friends don't have any genious... They followed kérouac but they understand nothing to his poetry

  • He's a poet, but he's a beat too

  • kerouac is a man, and all he did was write about how fucked up a man is, as truthfully as he could tell it to himself.

  • Howl

  • what were you doing 50 years ago? would anyone care to read about it? will anyone ever care about you when you're dead?

  • What's wrong with being dead and forgotten? This immortality thing is the lowest romantic mythology. Pure personality cult. I'd rather be dead and erased from every memory than live in a fake, fast food, calvin klein posterity of would-be artists.

  • hey, that's not what you were saying yesterday at that reading you gave at the starbucks inside the gap, down at the local mall.

  • What you fail to consider is the fact that people might enjoy art, whether it is On The Road or The Divine Comedy, Pollack or Rembrandt, because they see themselves in it. That's the beauty of art; that it is not simply an expression of one person, but the expression of one person as a representation of all individuals. It seems to me that you, like many others, have noticed this and reacted to it like a pathogen; you notice greatness and are jealous rather than appreciative.

  • so awesome to see this. Thank you for posting!

  • lupine...thanks so much for sharing this incredible footage!!

  • So cool to see this.

  • allen kills me in this clip by how much jeff goldbloom and he resemble one another

  • I was thinking more early Francis Ford Coppola.....like during Apocalypse Now.

  • david cross:)

  • David Cross indeed!!!

  • I wonder what Ginsberg is talking about with that girl. He sounds so interesting i would love to have had a conversation with him.

  • thats so cool, just seeing kerouac and ginsberg standing around lol

  • Many think the Beats were super cool and theirs was, in essence, a spiritual movement as well as intellectual -- but seriously, how can anyone say this?: LOOK at how they're endangering those precious youngsters, not giving a whit to the harm being done to them by their second-hand smoke. OK, jokes over. But I'm surprised a fascist from America's anti smoking crowd hasn't yet posted.

  • this is amazing...i thought tinghs like that doesn't exist...

  • Jack';s not angry he's just making a point with a headstrong and very intelligent Mary Frank. She was a super conversationalist. Allen loved her too.

    Can anyone ID the guy at 1:50 ?

  • Kerouac king of the beats.... i was thinking of finding a deaf person to read Kerouacs lips when he is talking to that girl at 2:00...  he looks kinda angry!

  • yeah thats what i thought but she smiles so maybe he saying something that he is passionate about like faith or politics or something spiritula ya know