“Howl” takes cinematic venture after 50 years of book-length poem launched an obscenity trail in the 1950′s.

Take a look at the cast including David Strathaim, Alan Alda, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker and Paul Rudd with James Franco as Allen Ginsberg, the author of the controversial poem.

Howl is being touted as a beatnik piece by creating an animation re-imaging in segments described as “a Beat Fantasia.”

If anyone knows their freedom of speech history, they’ll recall Ginsberg’s poem envisioned issues — free speech, government censorship, militaristic empire building, fear-mongering and sexual conformity — that are relevant today according to the film producers, directors and writers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, who make their debut with this 1950′s era film.