Robert Frank: Pull My Daisy

by Robert Frank (Photographer)

Documenting Robert Frank’s classic film of Beat Generation energy at its peak "First take best take," to paraphrase Allen Ginsberg, was for years the ethos presumed to have governed the making of Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie's classic Beat Generation film Pull My Daisy (1959)--until Leslie revealed in 1968 that its scenes had been as scripted and rehearsed as any Hollywood movie. Even Jack Kerouac's famous voiceover narration, which careens wonderfully in and out of sync with the action, was actually composed in advance, performed four times and then mixed from three separate takes. But the film remains a supreme document of Beat Generation energy at its peak, with several of its key players Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Larry Rivers, Peter Orlovsky, David Amram, Richard Bellamy, Alice Neel, Sally Gross and Pablo Frank (Robert Frank's then-infant son). Based on an incident in the life of Beat muse Neal Cassady and his wife Carolyn, Daisy tells the story of a railway brakeman whose painter wife has invited a respectable bishop over for dinner at their Bowery apartment. The brakeman's "Beatnik" friends crash the occasion, and the playful provocations ("Is baseball holy?") they put to the bishop ("Strange thoughts you young people have!") baffle the clergyman's propriety and expectation of a "civilized" evening. This book interweaves the script of Kerouac's narration with film stills, and also includes a 1961 introduction by Jerry Tallmer.

Genres: Photography, Film

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society. Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said The Americans "changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. [ ... ] it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century." Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with manipulating photographs and photomontage.

Reviews

[erynde · Rating 3 out of 5]

so i like reading about beatniks and doing research on their lives. i think what jerry tallmer says about them in this book’s introduction is a good summary of the beat generation:

“it is also, like the movie, an ugly poem - ugly for its put-downs, its woman-hatred, its sexual squareness (all beat sex is square), its holier-than-thou infantile anarchies.”

beatnik works are ugly and obscene and honest; that may be the reason i like them because they seriously don’t care. it is hard to consider anything they do as literary masterpieces (minor or major) but it would be bad to completely ignore their influence in the literary world either.

i give this 3,5 stars because i don’t know how to react to these people and their work anymore.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book or object by the German publisher Steidl is always excellent. They simply do not put out bad titles or books. And for the past so-many years they are the press to go to with respect to the works of Robert Frank. "Pull My Daisy" is a film made by Frank and Alfred Leslie that is basically ground zero for the Beat Generation. Based on an un-produced play by Jack Kerouac, this 28 minute film stars poets Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and painter Larry Rivers. With Alice Neal and David Amram. And a totally improvised voice-over by Kerouac.

This is a work that has 'charm' all over it. In many ways a goof, but as one knows in the Beat world, a goof is sort of a heightened experience. Kerouac is a genius, and there is no bad Jack. Sometimes there is weak Jack, or Jack-can-be-better - but overall this titan of Beat can really do no wrong with me.

For around $28 you get a beautifully (and simply) designed box with two books. The 'script' with essay and another book by the great photographer John Cohen with his footage of the making of this film and other images of them just hanging out. Simply essential in a goofy way.

[Jude Burrows · Rating 4 out of 5]

a love letter to the beat generation. i think if you attempt to take this work as anything beyond this, you will miss the simple wild beauty of it. wonderful film shots accompanied with frantic expression. ‘well, they turn over their little purple moonlight pages in which their secret doodlings do show.’

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's fair to say I had no idea what I was getting when I bought this book, which I picked up because of the involvement of Kerouac. Kerouac wrote the poem that accompanies the images, but the book itself is a simulacrum of a 28-minute beat film with the title Pull My Daisy. I have never heard of, let alone seen, this movie, but apparently it is a well-known artifact of the beat era by people who study it more than I do.

The book is mostly pictures from the film, with an introduction (which is actually the best part of the book) and the poem by Kerouac. I think the whole thing will be more valuable to you if you know something about this movie.

To someone like me, with a vague interest in the beats, this is an inessential piece of cultural flotsam.

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short film, based on the third act of Kerouac's play "The Beat Generation", which I just read! Another, stranger connection is that the transcript in this book mentions Ma Rainey, and I just saw a movie about her! Weird...

The strength of this book is the pictures! I think that they are stills from the film, but they are still pretty cool! The poem is in here, as is a script, or is it a transcript, of the short movie. And finally, there is a layout of photos with quotes from the movie under them, sort of like a storyboard. I still don't think the play makes a lot of sense, but I'm curious to see the film!

“The bishop says, What, holy, holy?”

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great little portrait- in words and pictures- of The Beat Generation at its moment of explosion. Kerouac's spontaneous narration moves and bounces like the best jazz of its time.

[Ned · Rating 2 out of 5]

i wish i could watch the movie, but this is a nice enough thing.