The Subterraneans (1960)

Mardou Fox: I go through men as other women go through money. I'm a spendthrift with men ... I want so badly to be a miser!

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Mardou Fox: Our town changed hands six times. My mother changed hands more often than that.

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"Subterraneans" author Jack Kerouac was disturbed that his friend, author John Clellon Holmes, managed to get his "Beat Generation" novel "Go" into print before his own was published ("Go", in which Kerouac is a main character, was published in 1952, while "On the Road" was not published until 1957). Kerouac was worried that Holmes was plagiarizing him, although Holmes was careful to credit Kerouac with creating the term "Beat" for their generation, and much of the material was common amongst them and other writers of their circle, such as Allen Ginsberg. Ironically, producer Albert Zugsmith outfoxed Kerouac by copyrighting the term "The Beat Generation", which he used as the title of an egregious film. The 1960 movie of "The Subterraneans", made by a top studio with top talent, proved to be a major disappointment as it grossly misrepresented the scene (as well as Kerouac's novel), but ironically, it is probably the premier movie about the Beats, as so few "Beat" movies were made, the phenomenon occurring during a time of strict screen censorship in the United States. By the time censorship was lifted in 1968, the Beats had been supplanted by the Hippies.
Diahann Carroll was considered for the role of Mardou.
Barry Miles, in his 1999 biography "King of the Beats", claims that "Subterraneans" author Jack Kerouac suffered from an Oedipal complex in which he replaced his father Leo as his mother's faux-"husband". Kerouac always returned to his mother Gabrielle (called "Memère") after his adventures, and wound up living with her permanently after the success of "On The Road" gave him enough money to buy a house. Kerouac's friends, such as William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg were aghast that Jack was bound so tightly by his mother's apron strings, thinking it kept him emotionally retarded. He failed to have a deep, lasting relationship with any of his wives or any other woman (his last wife, Stella, was described by most as being a kind of household slave abused by both Jack and "Memère"). Kerouac defended himself, saying he made a solemn oath to his father Leo on his deathbed to take care of his mother, though it was unlikely he meant that Jack should forgo having a stable marriage of his own and live with "Memère" for the rest of his life. On her part, Memère kept Kerouac infantalized, with his own blessing: She opened his mail and forbade certain of his friends from visiting her home (and Jack's home), such as Ginsburg, who had known him all their aduread more facts about The Subterraneans...