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Vanishing Point Forever

Vanishing Point Forever

by Jerry Cimino

Fifty-three years ago this week, a very small film with a budget just north of a million dollars was released by 20th Century Fox without a lot of fanfare. It was soon relegated to double feature status at drive-in movie theaters across the country, where it took on a second life. 

“Everyone who has seen Vanishing Point remembers the car: a gleaming white 1970 Dodge Challenger, so aerodynamically sleek it appears to have reversed the laws of nature. This car doesn’t look as if it displaces the air but as if the air itself parts to make way for it.” –Charles Taylor, Opening Wednesday at a Theatre or Drive-In Near You

If this sounds familiar to you, it may be because I wrote about this very film three months ago when we published an article about artist Richard Prince and the greatest collection of Beat Generation and counterculture material in the world. I started that story with an anecdote related to the movie Vanishing Point, which featured a Dean Moriarty-type character named Kowalski racing from Denver to San Francisco in fifteen hours, driving a 1970 Dodge Challenger. I was intrigued because in 1970 my brother Jack owned that exact same car.

What I didn’t know when I wrote that article was that a brand new book titled Vanishing Point Forever was to be released a month later, covering every single aspect you could ever hope to know about the movie. This magnificent release clocks in at a robust 572 pages. It includes dozens of high-quality photographs of production stills from the movie, excerpts, ephemera, essays, remembrances, and brightly colored movie posters from around the world. It even reproduces the entire 137-page final draft of the screenplay by G. Cain (a pseudonym for Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante). 

Guillermo Cabrera Infante reading a copy of On the Road in a bar in Cuba.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante reading a copy of On the Road in a bar in Cuba.

Guillermo Cabrera Infante was born in Cuba in 1929 and became a prominent novelist as well as a journalist, translator, essayist, and critic. Starting in the 1950s he used the pseudonyms G. Cain and Guillermo Cain. Choosing the first two letters of his middle name and surname to come up with “Cain,” Infante seemed to enjoy the notoriety that came with being associated with the world’s first criminal. In 1965 he moved to England for political reasons, which is where he was living when he wrote the screenplay for Vanishing Point as G. Cain.

Vanishing Point Forever – A Love Letter to a Moment in Time

Vanishing Point Forever is truly one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. The unusual layout and design of the book, with its rich colors and variation in the textures of its paper stocks, reminds me of something Gypsy Lou and John Webb of Loujon Press in New Orleans might have created decades ago. Written by Robert M. Rubin, published by Film Desk Books, and designed for print production by COMA Design, it’s the type of book that can literally take your breath away—especially if you’re into muscle cars and film history!

An ad for the 1970 Dodge Challenger (verso), available in an array of colors (recto)
The Challenger in its 1970 debut year was offered in a staggering array of 28 different colors.

Vanishing Point Forever is a deep dive into the movie, not only as a defining moment at the end of the counterculture era, but as an inquiry into its lasting influences as well. The film encompasses the burgeoning divisions within the USA, the loss of innocence, the end of the hippie scene, and the wind-down of the Vietnam War, along with its unsatisfying resolution.

How does this relate to Kerouac and the Beats? Really in the simplest of ways. On the second page of the final version of the screenplay there are only four words: “In Memoriam Dean Moriarty.” The truth is, Kerouac is all over the screenplay, as well as in the film itself, and Vanishing Point Forever succeeds where both the film Vanishing Point and Kerouac’s novel On the Road also succeeded: the idea of car as character. 

The Car Becomes a Character

The 1970 Dodge Challenger of the movie can easily be seen as a stand-in for the way Kerouac casts the ’49 Hudson in On the Road. Both cars seem to take on a living, breathing persona as they roar across the American West. 

In a number of ways, Vanishing Point realizes some of the storylines echoed in Jack Kerouac’s correspondence with movie producer Jerry Wald, who in 1958 discussed with Jack his vision for a movie version of On the Road. Wald wanted Dean Moriarty to die in a fiery car crash at the end of the movie. Kerouac wouldn’t go for it. He is reported saying “Neal could never crash a car. Unless he wanted to do it on purpose.” Jack wanted the closing scene of On the Road the movie to be Dean at home having supper with his wife and children.

Vanishing Point was a culture-shifting work of art borne out of the chaos and constraints of movie production. Just like Francis Ford Coppola needed to contend with a typhoon destroying his set, and Martin Sheen suffering a heart attack in the middle of filming Apocalypse Now!, so too did director Robert Sarafian need to accommodate sudden studio budget cuts and truncated shooting days. Entire scenes were deleted and dialogue ripped up to meet the demands of the studio.

The studio’s decisions also brought a lot of positive aspects to the production. In Guillemo’s orginal screenplay, Kowalski’s car was a Ford Galaxie 500. But then fate intervened when Chrysler offered to lease the studio five brand new white Dodge Challengers for $1 a day to promote their new muscle car competing with the Camaro and Mustang for the 1970 model year.

Kowalski. No First Name. Just Kowalski.

The lead character in Vanishing Point played by actor Barry Newman is simply Kowalski. He has no first name, neither in the movie nor in the screenplay, and director Sarafian suggested he wanted the character to appear “otherworldly.”  When we first meet Kowalski he’s buying Benzedrine from his drug dealer to make the drive from Denver to San Francisco.

Barry Newman as Kowalksi

Sound familiar?

So this raises the question: is the name Kowalksi a nod to Marlon Brando’s character Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire?

Guillermo Cabrera Infante actually interviewed Marlon Brando in Havana, Cuba in 1956. That interview is included in its entirety in Vanishing Point Forever in both Spanish and English.

Guillermo Cabrera Infante (left) and Marlon Brando (right) with conga drum

Brando confesses that he only agreed to the interview because Infante was Cuban and not an American journalist, most of whom only seem to want to write gossip, and that his reason for being in Havana was simply to buy a conga drum. 

During his time with Infante, Brando opines on the likes of Elia Kazan, Katherine Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Charlie Chaplin, Paul Muni, Judy Garland, and Grace Kelly. Infante and Brando go to dinner to continue their conversation and Brando is relieved no one in the restaurant recognizes him. At the time Infante met Brando the actor had already been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor four years in a row: for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1952; for Viva Zapata! in 1953; for Julius Caesar in 1954; and On the Waterfront in 1955, for which Brando finally won his first Oscar.

Cleavon Little played the character Super Soul, a voice from afar 

They take to the streets of Havana, where Infante has to hail the cab because Brando is so well known people are shouting his name on the street. The same thing happens in the clubs where they go to listen to music—the club owners even stop the show to focus a spotlight on Brando—to the point he and Infante need to make a fast exit to avoid being overwhelmed by fans. Commenting on James Dean’s recent death in a car wreck, Brando states, “He had poetry inside him. With time he would have learned to bring it out and express it.” And, of course they speak of Brando’s own films, including 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire where he played Stanley Kowalski. 

Charlotte Rampling played a hitchhiker many associate with Death. Her scene was cut in the US version.
Charlotte Rampling played a hitchhiker many associate with Death. Her scene was cut in the US version.

Other stars in the film include Cleavon Little, who plays ‘Super Soul’, a radio DJ who tries to guide Kowalski away from the cops (“the blue meanies”). Another scene, in which Kowalski picks up Charlotte Rampling’s character as she’s hitchhiking west in the middle of the night, was cut entirely from the film’s American release, but stole the show for Europeans.

The Long Tail of Vanishing Point

–Quentin Tarantino, Cinema Speculation

It would be hard to overstate the influence of this film in the last half-century. Not only do high-profile cultural icons like Bruce Springsteen and Steven Spielberg count it among their favorite films, but it regularly receives a nod or attribution from other filmmakers as well, such as in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof. References to the film can be seen in many quarters even today, and one might even make the case that the resurgence of muscle cars in the 2000s was due in part to what Robert Rubin likes to call “the long tail of Vanishing Point.” 

The End of the Road

The last Challenger to roll off the Dodge assembly line did so on December 22, 2023. Because of government mileage requirements, the line is being retooled for electric vehicles, though there’s talk that the Challenger may return for a fourth generation as an EV in 2025.

There goes the Challenger being chased by the blue, blue meanies…
There goes the Challenger being chased by the blue, blue meanies…

So strongly embedded in the culture is the legend of this film that when actor Barry Newman died in 2023, half of his New York Times obituary was dedicated to his role as Kowalski in Vanishing Point, which the Times described as “One long psychedelic car chase.”

It seems Robert Rubin’s Vanishing Point Forever has arrived just at the right time in 2024.


Robert M. Rubin is a writer, collector and cultural historian. Often these three areas overlap. He writes about topics that interest him and collects items that have meaning for him. He’s curated the exhibitions Richard Prince American Prayer (2011), and Avedon’s France: Old World, New Look (2017), both at the Bibliotheque nationale de France, as well as Walkers: Hollywood Afterlives in Art and Artifact (2015) at the Museum of the Moving Image. Vanishing Point Forever is his latest book. 


You can purchase Vanishing Point Forever here:

Shop Now (Film Desk Books)

An article on Vanishing Point Forever was published in Car and Driver magazine just last week.

A Day on the Set of Big Sur, Part 1

A Day on the Set of Big Sur, Part 1

by Jerry Cimino

Bixby Canyon Bridge in the Fog

And then there were two.

As a friend of mine put it most succinctly a few weeks ago, “I’ve been waiting fifty years for a new film adaptation of one of Kerouac’s books, and now we’ve got two of them coming one on the heels of the other.”

Truer words were never spoken. Those of us who are die hard fans had to suffer through the knowing that the only Kerouac novel that had ever been adapted to the silver screen was The Subterraneans. Don’t go looking for it. It’s bad, trust me. So bad, it’s never legitimately been released to either VHS or DVD. So bad it’s why some say old Jack drank himself to death.

That last clever aside may not be far off the mark. And it segues perfectly into the news about the second Kerouac novel to wrap filming and go into post-production this year. Big Sur is the story of Kerouac’s descent into full-blown alcoholism complete with the DT’s (delirium tremens) which led to his eventual demise. The timeline fits perfectly: With On the Road, Kerouac becomes famous in 1957. Declared the ‘King of the Beatniks’ soon after, The Subterraneans is released as a film 1960 (major plot line: Jack’s love affair with a black woman—Mardou Fox—changed to a French woman in the film – that was enough of a leap for 1960 US audiences). Kerouac’s Big Sur adventures take place in 1961. It’s Jack’s last trip to California and he never comes out of the bottle.

Big Sur has always been one of my favorite books, but it’s not for the faint hearted. It’s amazing to consider that someone can so capably and clearly chronicle the beginning of their own demise. I love the way Kerouac contrasts the magnificent scenery and natural beauty of Big Sur along with the power of the Pacific Ocean against the turmoil of his own inner demons that eventually take him down.

Frankly, Big Sur is the reason my wife and I moved from the Baltimore/Washington DC area to Monterey, California in 1988. We had to see Big Sur and we both fell in love with it. We eventually settled in Monterey (as opposed to Big Sur) 30 miles up the coast because we thought we needed telephones, running water and cable TV.

So now comes Big Sur the movie, fast upon the heels of On the Road. Kerouac is hot in 2011/2012 and if the interest in these two films is any indication, he’s about to get a lot hotter.

BACKGROUND

Big Sur the movie crashed over us like a wave blasting through North Beach. We were hanging out at The Museum, typical day, when suddenly a dozen people exploded through the front door with cameras and equipment. “Who are you guys? What are you up to?” “We’re a French TV Production Company, we’re following the story of the making of Big Sur.” “What do you mean the making of Big Sur?” “It’s those guys over there, they’re making Big Sur into a movie. They start filming this week in San Francisco, and we’re here to document all that.”

And that’s how we met Michael Polish and Jean-Marc Barr. Polish is a film director, most well known for some films he made with his twin brother Mark. They’ve been staples at Sundance for the last decade, having first made their mark in 1999, the same year I went there to see The Source by Chuck Workman. One of the Polish Brothers’ better known films is The Astronaut Farmer with Billy Bob Thornton. I’ve watched it on TV more than once. You can read more about Michael Polish here »

Jean-Marc Barr seems an unlikely actor to play Kerouac. First he’s as bald as I am and secondly he’s a French actor (American father, bilingual, spent much time here in the US), and therefore rather unfamiliar to American audiences. That may be about to change with Big Sur.

Jean-Marc and I really hit it off talking about Kerouac. He really does know Jack! And he has a passion and desire to tell Jack’s story in the best way he can. We filmed some discussions for the documentary crew, walking around North Beach and pointing out the Beat sites. A couple from France recognized Jean-Marc when we were upstairs at The Beat Museum and asked for his autograph (he’s rather well known in France for a film he starred in called The Big Blue). Then an hour later, Jean-Marc abruptly says, “I’ve got to leave now. I’ve got to get fitted for a wig?” “A wig?” Jean-Marc smiled, “Jack had a beautiful head of hair and I need a little help up there.” You can read more about Jean-Marc here: Wikipedia: Jean-Marc Barr »

THE BIG SHOOT

A couple weeks later I’m in Monterey when I get a call from Orian Williams. He’s one of the producers for the movie. He wants to know what time I can meet them on set in Big Sur.

The area known as Big Sur starts less than twenty miles south of Monterey along Highway 1 and runs for a hundred miles. I’ve probably driven that coastal highway a thousand times in the last twenty years, but I never tire of it. In the middle of this forested expanse is the town of Big Sur itself, a place so small if you blink you’ll miss it. The name comes from Spanish origins, it means “The Big South” and it’s apropos because Big Sur literally runs from Carmel to San Simeon, mountains and forests falling into the Pacific Ocean—literally one of the most magnificent sights in the world. John Allen Cassady and I took a memorable trip down there years ago with our good friend and author Steve Edington who wrote The Beat Face of God.

Here’s a link to the blog entry detailing mine and John Cassady’s journey to Big Sur.

So, on this particular drive South I was expecting some delays because the spring rains had washed out sections of the road and there was a spot where a slide took out half the highway and dropped it into the Pacific Ocean. There were traffic control lights alternating the one lane in either direction. It was only a few minutes wait, fully automated, no big deal. A few miles South I found myself piled up in a long line of cars with a twenty minute wait and wondered why things were taking so long.

I soon found out when I crested the hill and saw California Highway Patrol cars intermittently stopping traffic. In the distance I could see what looked to be old style cars and crowds of people standing by the side of the road. I’d found the shooting location for the movie and every vacationing group driving up and down the highway that day couldn’t help but inadvertently find themselves in the middle it.

You’ve seen Big Sur before whether you know it or not. Every car company eventually shoots TV commercials of their latest model zipping the corners with a large expanse of the ocean and mountains in the background. It’s quite the sight and undoubtedly sells a lot of cars. But it’s not often these days you see a dozen 1950’s models rounding those same corners.

When I finally got to the Bixby Canyon Bridge the production company for Big Sur had taken over the entire area. A car carrier was sitting next to the bridge with that days “props” on it’s rails. An old Nash yellow cab was on a trailer – undoubtedly the cab being used for Jack’s $8 cab ride from Monterey down to Big Sur (to Raton Canyon, as he calls it in the book) after taking a bus down from SF to go to Lorenzo Monsanto’s (Ferlinghetti’s) cabin.

I spoke to a guy with a walkie talkie. He was coordinating vans moving people up and down the highway. They drove me down a few miles south where they were shooting that morning. I get to the spot and there are literally forty people standing along the side of the road working on various aspects of the film – drivers, electricians, medics, – everyone had their job. There were California Highway Patrol cars holding traffic so the crew could get their shot. After standing around for a few minutes, Jean-Marc spotted me and came over to say hello. He introduced me around to the various producers and crew members.

The scene they were filming was a brief one; it probably won’t be more than a minute in the final cut. It seemed to follow the book faithfully. Jack is hitchhiking from Big Sur back to SF and can’t catch a ride. Cars pass him, mothers in sunglasses and children eating ice cream stare at him. Jack walks miles up the road in bad shoes and develops terrible blisters before he finally catches a ride. It was the last time he ever hitchhiked.

Next Installment: We go to the base camp and I meet Anthony Edwards, Patrick Fischler, Josh Lucas, Stana Katic, Henry Thomas, Brenda Marie King – the actors playing Ferlinghetti, Lew Welch, Neal Cassady, Lenore Kandel, Phil Whelan and Joanna McClure.

Stay tuned –

A Day on the Set of Big Sur, Part 1

A Day on the Set of Big Sur, Part 1

by Jerry Cimino

Bixby Canyon Bridge in the Fog

And then there were two.

As a friend of mine put it most succinctly a few weeks ago, “I’ve been waiting fifty years for a new film adaptation of one of Kerouac’s books, and now we’ve got two of them coming one on the heels of the other.”

Truer words were never spoken. Those of us who are die hard fans had to suffer through the knowing that the only Kerouac novel that had ever been adapted to the silver screen was The Subterraneans. Don’t go looking for it. It’s bad, trust me. So bad, it’s never legitimately been released to either VHS or DVD. So bad it’s why some say old Jack drank himself to death.

That last clever aside may not be far off the mark. And it segues perfectly into the news about the second Kerouac novel to wrap filming and go into post-production this year. Big Sur is the story of Kerouac’s descent into full-blown alcoholism complete with the DT’s (delirium tremens) which led to his eventual demise. The timeline fits perfectly: With On the Road, Kerouac becomes famous in 1957. Declared the ‘King of the Beatniks’ soon after, The Subterraneans is released as a film 1960 (major plot line: Jack’s love affair with a black woman—Mardou Fox—changed to a French woman in the film – that was enough of a leap for 1960 US audiences). Kerouac’s Big Sur adventures take place in 1961. It’s Jack’s last trip to California and he never comes out of the bottle.

Big Sur has always been one of my favorite books, but it’s not for the faint hearted. It’s amazing to consider that someone can so capably and clearly chronicle the beginning of their own demise. I love the way Kerouac contrasts the magnificent scenery and natural beauty of Big Sur along with the power of the Pacific Ocean against the turmoil of his own inner demons that eventually take him down.

Frankly, Big Sur is the reason my wife and I moved from the Baltimore/Washington DC area to Monterey, California in 1988. We had to see Big Sur and we both fell in love with it. We eventually settled in Monterey (as opposed to Big Sur) 30 miles up the coast because we thought we needed telephones, running water and cable TV.

So now comes Big Sur the movie, fast upon the heels of On the Road. Kerouac is hot in 2011/2012 and if the interest in these two films is any indication, he’s about to get a lot hotter.

BACKGROUND

Big Sur the movie crashed over us like a wave blasting through North Beach. We were hanging out at The Museum, typical day, when suddenly a dozen people exploded through the front door with cameras and equipment. “Who are you guys? What are you up to?” “We’re a French TV Production Company, we’re following the story of the making of Big Sur.” “What do you mean the making of Big Sur?” “It’s those guys over there, they’re making Big Sur into a movie. They start filming this week in San Francisco, and we’re here to document all that.”

And that’s how we met Michael Polish and Jean-Marc Barr. Polish is a film director, most well known for some films he made with his twin brother Mark. They’ve been staples at Sundance for the last decade, having first made their mark in 1999, the same year I went there to see The Source by Chuck Workman. One of the Polish Brothers’ better known films is The Astronaut Farmer with Billy Bob Thornton. I’ve watched it on TV more than once. You can read more about Michael Polish here »

Jean-Marc Barr seems an unlikely actor to play Kerouac. First he’s as bald as I am and secondly he’s a French actor (American father, bilingual, spent much time here in the US), and therefore rather unfamiliar to American audiences. That may be about to change with Big Sur.

Jean-Marc and I really hit it off talking about Kerouac. He really does know Jack! And he has a passion and desire to tell Jack’s story in the best way he can. We filmed some discussions for the documentary crew, walking around North Beach and pointing out the Beat sites. A couple from France recognized Jean-Marc when we were upstairs at The Beat Museum and asked for his autograph (he’s rather well known in France for a film he starred in called The Big Blue). Then an hour later, Jean-Marc abruptly says, “I’ve got to leave now. I’ve got to get fitted for a wig?” “A wig?” Jean-Marc smiled, “Jack had a beautiful head of hair and I need a little help up there.” You can read more about Jean-Marc here: Wikipedia: Jean-Marc Barr »

THE BIG SHOOT

A couple weeks later I’m in Monterey when I get a call from Orian Williams. He’s one of the producers for the movie. He wants to know what time I can meet them on set in Big Sur.

The area known as Big Sur starts less than twenty miles south of Monterey along Highway 1 and runs for a hundred miles. I’ve probably driven that coastal highway a thousand times in the last twenty years, but I never tire of it. In the middle of this forested expanse is the town of Big Sur itself, a place so small if you blink you’ll miss it. The name comes from Spanish origins, it means “The Big South” and it’s apropos because Big Sur literally runs from Carmel to San Simeon, mountains and forests falling into the Pacific Ocean—literally one of the most magnificent sights in the world. John Allen Cassady and I took a memorable trip down there years ago with our good friend and author Steve Edington who wrote The Beat Face of God.

Here’s a link to the blog entry detailing mine and John Cassady’s journey to Big Sur.

So, on this particular drive South I was expecting some delays because the spring rains had washed out sections of the road and there was a spot where a slide took out half the highway and dropped it into the Pacific Ocean. There were traffic control lights alternating the one lane in either direction. It was only a few minutes wait, fully automated, no big deal. A few miles South I found myself piled up in a long line of cars with a twenty minute wait and wondered why things were taking so long.

I soon found out when I crested the hill and saw California Highway Patrol cars intermittently stopping traffic. In the distance I could see what looked to be old style cars and crowds of people standing by the side of the road. I’d found the shooting location for the movie and every vacationing group driving up and down the highway that day couldn’t help but inadvertently find themselves in the middle it.

You’ve seen Big Sur before whether you know it or not. Every car company eventually shoots TV commercials of their latest model zipping the corners with a large expanse of the ocean and mountains in the background. It’s quite the sight and undoubtedly sells a lot of cars. But it’s not often these days you see a dozen 1950’s models rounding those same corners.

When I finally got to the Bixby Canyon Bridge the production company for Big Sur had taken over the entire area. A car carrier was sitting next to the bridge with that days “props” on it’s rails. An old Nash yellow cab was on a trailer – undoubtedly the cab being used for Jack’s $8 cab ride from Monterey down to Big Sur (to Raton Canyon, as he calls it in the book) after taking a bus down from SF to go to Lorenzo Monsanto’s (Ferlinghetti’s) cabin.

I spoke to a guy with a walkie talkie. He was coordinating vans moving people up and down the highway. They drove me down a few miles south where they were shooting that morning. I get to the spot and there are literally forty people standing along the side of the road working on various aspects of the film – drivers, electricians, medics, – everyone had their job. There were California Highway Patrol cars holding traffic so the crew could get their shot. After standing around for a few minutes, Jean-Marc spotted me and came over to say hello. He introduced me around to the various producers and crew members.

The scene they were filming was a brief one; it probably won’t be more than a minute in the final cut. It seemed to follow the book faithfully. Jack is hitchhiking from Big Sur back to SF and can’t catch a ride. Cars pass him, mothers in sunglasses and children eating ice cream stare at him. Jack walks miles up the road in bad shoes and develops terrible blisters before he finally catches a ride. It was the last time he ever hitchhiked.

Next Installment: We go to the base camp and I meet Anthony Edwards, Patrick Fischler, Josh Lucas, Stana Katic, Henry Thomas, Brenda Marie King – the actors playing Ferlinghetti, Lew Welch, Neal Cassady, Lenore Kandel, Phil Whelan and Joanna McClure.

Stay tuned –

Exclusive Photos from 2nd Unit Shoot in April

This story came to our inbox along with these exclusive photos. They’re being published today for the first time anywhere at Kerouac.com.

And what a story! After wrapping filming for On The Road in San Francisco in December, 2010 Walter Salles and Garrett Hedlund took to the road for a second time in April of 2011. They spent two weeks along with a crew of five and blasted 4,000 miles across the back roads of the USA. They purposefully avoided the interstate highways not built until the 1950’s, retracing as best they could the original route of two lane roads Jack & Neal drove.

(more…)

On the Road with Jose Rivera (video)

Screenwriter José Rivera teamed up with director Walter Salles to adapt for the screen the story of Che Guevara’s 1952 motorcycle journey with Alberto Granado across South America. In this CityTV video, Rivera offers his thoughts on his latest collaboration with Salles in adapting Jack Kerouac’s classic, On the Road, to film.

New York Times article discussing On the Road

“Many consider Jack Kerouac’s On the Road sacred text. The novel was, after all, originally typed on a scroll…

“When it comes to the big screen, however, On the Road has faced a Kerouac curse. Past efforts by Hollywood to adapt the author’s work have been failures.

Now, somewhat quietly, On the Road has finally been made into a movie. The $25 million production, shot in San Francisco, Montreal and other locales, is scheduled for release this fall…”

More »

Another Production Still

This photo of Sam Riley (left) as Jack Kerouac and Garrett Hedlund (right) as Neal Cassady recently appeared in UK film magazine Total Film.

Still – The Mexico Whorehouse Scene

Here’s another promo photo for MK2 Productions’ movie On the Road:

This is undoubtedly the Mexican whorehouse scene from On the Road.  It takes place close to the end of the book, just after Jack and Neal blasted pot with the Mexican cats, Victor and his brothers, with them all digging each other, not speaking each other’s languages but just having fun being high together in the sun. Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund told us about filming this scene back in December when we were all sitting at Vesuvio in San Francisco.

(more…)

First Stills from On the Road

 

The first publicity photos for the movie On the Road were recently released by a French website. Now, I don’t know about you, but I see Marylou, Dean and a brooding Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) in that ’49 Hudson. Judge for yourself.

Filming Concludes for On the Road Movie

 

I sincerely wish every lover of The Beat Generation could have been in my shoes this last week as the filming for the movie On the Road concluded in San Francisco. As I am the one fortunate enough to have had the experience, I will relate my feelings and impressions to the best of my ability

(more…)

John Allen Cassady’s Photos from the OTR Movie Set

 

John Allen Cassady was in England visiting his mother, Carolyn Cassady, when he got the call from Walter Salles, Director of “On The Road”. Walter wanted to know if John would be willing to interrupt his visit with Carolyn so he could meet and give a talk to the cast and crew of the movie while they were filming in Montreal. Walter promised a round trip flight from London to Montreal and that John would be back at his mum’s place in a few days. John only wanted to know one thing: “Will I get to meet Kristen Stewart?” He was assured he’d meet everyone so John boarded that silver bird.

(more…)

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