A 1960 Hollywood adaptation of Jack Kerouac's book about the "new Bohemians" has to be in every way a portrait of its time-for what it attempts to be, what it fails to be, and, finally, what it is. It inspired reviews such as this in Film Quarterly: "Man, the Bagel Shop was never like this! Too much. Leslie Caron, as an obsessive, possessive nympho, has a $50 hairdo, I.-Magnin sack dresses, and a nifty apartment-but not 15 cents to get to the city psychiatrist. She made the scene last night, met and slept with George Peppard, and needs treatment. He's a writer! It's his life! He yaks about it for hours; leaves her; gets drunk; and stays that way. She is pregnant, and stays that way. As some Vogue-type beats...carouse like refugees from a Beaux Arts Ball, the two meet again in an MGM Cellar...." etc. Producer Arthur Freed, of the MGM musicals, had wanted to do it straight (for starters, the girl in the book is black), but that's another story. It's time for another look, in context. Barry Gifford is the author, with Lawrence Lee, of Jack's Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac.