A seminal work of theNew American Cinema, Pull My Daisy is more than a film about the beatgeneration; it is a beat experience on film, a free improvisation on ascene from an unproduced play by Jack Kerouac. The narration has theimmediacy of Kerouac's poetic reality, and the film, co-directed byRobert Frank and Alfred Leslie, the spontaneity and the fugitive framingof Frank's still photographs. The setting is a Greenwich Villageapartment where Milo (Larry Rivers), an ex-junkie, suffers the attemptsof his wife (Delphine Seyrig) to convert him to the middle class. Tothis end, she invites a bishop of unidentifiable faith to their home;Milo, meanwhile, invites a few poet friends: Allen Ginsberg, GregoryCorso and Peter Orlovsky. The result is a mad evening indeed. The filmwas shot silent; on the soundtrack, Kerouac gives voice to all thecharacters.