Just what I didn't need: mindless anti-Beat Generation propaganda delivered by this usually fine Brit series in 1959 and unwatchable 65 years later.
Only these are supposedly French "beatniques", hanging out at the Cannes Film Festival. The meretricious episode manages to offer zero connection the the movies or the festival (an event I attended as a reporter back in the day and treasure in my memory bank), and caricatures and belittles as ignorant jerks the youngsters known as beatniks. It's not funny but history and the gradually changing establishment (currently right wing-dominated but not forever) likes to demonize both the Beats and the Hippies, eras I lived through and found provocatively inspirational in their ambitions. Even the fine TV series "Mad Men" consistently made fun of same.
The episode is a disaster start to finish, with a dumb blackmail story, idiotic plot twists, and lousy guest cast. It even portrays jazz clubs disparagingly, when in fact the Euro love for jazz and Bud Powell, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Clarke, among others. Is most admirable and was forever told positively in Tavernier's movie "Round Midnight" in the '80s.