In the 1950s, an influential group of counterculture writers formed within American culture: the Beat Generation, which included Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Opposing capitalism and materialism, the group spearheaded counterculture within patriotic literature.

This short film is based on Kerouac’s play Beat Generation and features Kerouac himself as well as Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, and Delphine Seyrig. Pull My Daisy tells the story of a railroad brakeman whose wife invites a bishop to dinner, but his bohemian friends spoil the party with hilarious consequences.

Spontaneity was one of the Beat authors’ formal traits, and this film, too, involved a great deal of improvisation. Pull My Daisy is a high point in improvisational cinema and a signature film for the Beat Generation.