Pull My Daisy

❧

Wikipedia

Pull My Daisy
Directed byRobert Frank
Alfred Leslie
Written byJack Kerouac
Narrated byJack Kerouac
Edited byLeon Prochnik
Robert Frank
Alfred Leslie
Distributed byG-String Productions
Release date
  • 1959 (1959)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Pull My Daisy is a 1959 American black and white short film directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie and starring Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Peter Orlovsky. It was adapted by Jack Kerouac from the third act of his play, Beat Generation.[1][2][3]

Plot

Based on an incident in the life of Beat icon Neal Cassady and his wife, the painter Carolyn,[citation needed] the film tells the story of a railway brakeman whose wife invites a respected bishop over for dinner. However, the brakeman's bohemian friends crash the party, with comic results.

Cast

Production

Originally intended to be called The Beat Generation, the title Pull My Daisy was taken from the poem of the same name written by Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Cassady in the late 1940s.[citation needed] Part of the original poem was used as a lyric in Amram's jazz composition "The Crazy Daisy", sung by Anita Ellis, that opens the film.

In an interview with American Legends website, David Amram recalled of the chaotic production: "It was at Jerry Newman’s studio. I played the piano. Jack just sat down, saw the massacring of what he had written and did this phenomenal narration to make it look like what it was supposed to be. When you see Pull My Daisy, close your eyes and just listen to Jack talking. That’s the whole value of it right there. If Jack hadn’t narrated it, it would have been just another home movie."[4]

It was filmed in Alfred Leslie's loft at Fourth Ave. & 12th St. in Manhattan.[5]

Leslie and Frank discuss the film at length in Jack Sargeant's book Naked Lens: Beat Cinema. An illustrated transcript of the film's narration was also published in 1961 by Grove Press.

Release

Pull My Daisy premiered at the 1959 San Francisco International Film Festival. It was then released theatrically by Emile de Antonio in 1960.[6][7]

Reception

The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "This featurette has attracted considerable notice and comment because it was made by some charter members of the Beat Generation, including the movement's high priest and prophet, Jack Kerouac and its poet laureate, Allen Ginsberg. It has been hailed in some quarters as part of the Amerizan cinema's "new wave. It isnn't that, but it is – or should be – interesting to Hollywood as an authentic statement of what the Beats are up to, provided by themselves. ... The title doesn't mean anything. There is no story in Kerouac's screenplay, which the novelist himself narrates. It is concerned mostly with some looney humor, often quite funny, as a trio of Beats, including Ginsberg, confront representatives of the regular – or square – world. ... Filmed in New York, the production is ragged technically, but never dull Anita Ellis sings a title song behind the main titles, which certainly shows the boys are willing to learn."[8]

The New Statesman called the film "poetic and funny."[9]

Preservation status

Pull My Daisy was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1996, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Pull My Daisy". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 25 November 2025.
  2. ↑ Allan, Blaine (1988). "The Making (and Unmaking) of "Pull My Daisy"". Film History. 2 (3): 185–205. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 3815117.
  3. ↑ Glaister, Dan (2005-05-20). "'Lost' Kerouac play resurfaces after 50 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  4. ↑ "American Legends Interviews..... JACK KEROUAC AND LANGSTON HUGHES: SOUL BROTHERS". www.americanlegends.com. Retrieved 2025-09-30.
  5. ↑ Kerouac, Jack (1961). Pull My Daisy. Grove Press. p. 17.
  6. ↑ "Our own 'New Wave'; Local Film Makers Give Promise of More". 1960-04-10. Retrieved 2025-11-25.
  7. ↑ "View from a local vantage point". 1961-10-15. Retrieved 2025-11-25.
  8. ↑ "Pull My Daisy". The Hollywood Reporter. 161 (32): 3. 25 August 1960. ProQuest 2338126921.
  9. ↑ Whitebait, William (2 Jul 1960). "Old and new waves". New Statesman. 60: 85 – via ProQuest.