REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Warner Bros., 1955) Warner Home Video
James Dean’s iconography has become
inextricably associated with the pseudo-delinquent teenager, Jim Stark in
Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without A Cause (1955). For many, James and Jim are
as interchangeable as the left and right sock fitted neatly into one’s shoe,
with any differences long since obscuring the genuine flesh and blood. Dean…or
rather…Jim, the conflicted, some would say ‘tortured’ youth, suffers through
crippling bouts of internalized angst, the result of an unhappy home, forcing
him to succumb to the renegade dangerousness of living outside middle-class
fifties’ buttoned-down conservatism. A pity, this line between reality and
fiction – or rather, betwixt Jim and James – has created a myth from the legend,
made whole after Dean’s premature death. Ostensibly, James Dean – the man - has
never been given his due. At intervals, we have come to ‘understand’ Dean as a
painfully shy introvert who found solace in escaping into one of the most
extroverted of all professions – acting. Though he was woefully inept socially-speaking,
Dean managed to extol a curious empathy from most of his co-stars, perhaps as
something of a troubled old soul trapped in a young man’s body, and, in
desperate need of some mothering. Deceptively attractive, he was strangely
unsettling and volatile from within - in short, an enigma, a curiosity and an
oddity all rolled into one.
So, again, at a glance, and
superficially, the fictional persona of Jim Stark fitted James Dean like a
glove. Yet, does it? Dean's mother died of uterine cancer when he was only
9-yrs. old. Raised on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, Dean sought counsel and
friendship with Rev. James DeWeerd, who inspired Dean’s passions for
bullfighting, the theater, and – regrettably - auto-racing. It has also been
inferred – though never entirely confirmed – DeWeerd took advantage of Dean –
sexually. Despite these hardships, Dean proved an exceptionally gifted student.
Alas, Dean’s estranged father was not accepting of his son’s interest to pursue
acting as a profession. Not surprising, this only made Dean want to excel at it
more. At age 22, he was peddling Pepsi on television and appearing as John the
Apostle in an Easter telecast of the Resurrection of Jesus. Though the ‘official’
bio reads, Dean only made 3 movies, he actually appeared as mere background in a
lot more: Fixed Bayonets! (1951), Sailor Beware, Has Anybody Seen My
Gal?, and, Deadline U.S.A (all of them in 1952). Studying at the Actor’s
Studio, Dean’s gainful employment on television continued with appearances on Kraft
Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour,
Danger, and General Electric Theater. But it was his role on
Broadway in The Immoralist, opposite Geraldine Page (with whom he had a
brief affair) that finally made Hollywood take notice.
From here, director, Elia Kazan, impressed with Dean’s emotional complexity, tapped him for his big screen debut as Cal Trask – the lead, in 1955’s East of Eden. On the heels of ‘Eden’ came ‘Rebel’ – the movie to so completely trigger the youth market, it instantly made James Dean a household name. Then – as now – Hollywood hoped to craft a ‘persona’ for Dean the public could adhere to without question. So, great strides were made to create as much of a separation between Jim Stark and James Dean at the time. Kazan would later claim Dean was not ‘interested’ in women for the long term. Although romantically linked to another rising star, Pier Angeli, much has been hinted since that Dean was a practicing bi-sexual, favoring male companionship with his college roomie, William Bast, posthumously to become Dean’s biographer. Angeli’s mum objected to Dean – or rather, the persona of him, as did Warner Bros. having Dean attached to any one starlet, lest it blunt his appeal with his bobbysoxer fanbase, already to have romanticized him as their ‘bad boy/loner’ pin-up du jour. Whatever the case, the promise, the dream, and, the reality that was James Dean came to a bitter end on Sept. 30th, 1955.
Just one year earlier, Dean had
become enamored with auto-racing. Completing his first professional competition
in Palm Springs, California, just prior to the release of Rebel Without a
Cause, the studio absolutely forbade Dean to partake of any further auto-racing
exhibitions until the completion of Giant (1956). Dean adhered to this
provision faithfully, but bought a faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder in
anticipation of returning to competition immediately thereafter. Accompanying Dean on that fateful Sept. 30th
were stunt coordinator, Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer, Sanford Roth, and
Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained
Dean's Spyder. Wütherich was riding with Dean when the accident occurred, but
sustained only minor injuries. Dean, alas, was not as lucky.
Whether Dean’s ‘bad boy’ persona
became affected, particularly after Dean quickly realized he could manipulate it
to suit his own purpose, remains open for discussion. There is little to deny Dean’s on-screen
presence was as little more than transparent of his own built-in tetchy uncertainty.
He could be aloof, disagreeable, moody and brooding, never quite sure of
himself and always critical and suspicious of the world around him. Arguably,
Dean’s mistrust of the human race was inculcated at birth – or at least, after
the death of his mother. It is one of Hollywood’s ironies that this most
unlikely of stars rose through the ranks, in retrospect, as a supernova,
burning out well before its time. Many have speculated what Dean’s career might
have been after the release of Giant – as Dean’s alter ego, Jett Rink,
effectively aged throughout the movie into a man well into his late fifties. Given his popularity as a teen heartthrob, likely,
Dean would have gone on playing the social misfit, though as inevitably, the audience
would have eventually tired of this too – as fickle audiences do. But Dean had
shown great promise in Giant – proof, he knew his craft apart and well
beyond mere stereotype. The question
therefore remains, ‘would Hollywood have allowed Dean the chance to eschew
their dye-cast iconography?’ We will
never know. As on September 30, 1955, Dean wrapped his silver Porche Spyder
around a telephone poll on a lonely road in Cholame, California, depriving us
all of his promise, predictions and projections for his future stardom.
Only in hindsight does Rebel Without
a Cause seem to foreshadow Dean’s demise. Nicholas Ray’s astute critique of
troubled youth mixes its metaphors to arguably illuminate the back story behind
the badness. Jim Stark is, in fact, not a bad boy. He is, regrettably, someone
to whom trouble seems to readily find a home. Despite exuding the image of a
guy with all the answers, Jim is a tormented creature, lashing out at authority
to compensate for the interminable lack of a strong male figure in his life,
someone to guide him through the labyrinth of his teen years. The Stewart Stern/Irving
Shulman screenplay draws its parallels between James Dean and Jim Stark – at times,
with a frightful clairvoyant, as when Jim raises angry hands in tear-stained
anguish to his ineffectual parents, shouting “You’re tearing me apart!” One can taste the bitter affliction in Dean’s
confused rage. In moments such as this, it is virtually impossible to separate Jim
from James, the two singularly driven, cries unheard – or, at the very least,
misunderstood and/or ignored by the status quo of milquetoast adults who
threaten to push him over the edge. Yet
Jim, unlike Dean, is grounded – at least, enough to recognize his own
fallibility, collect his wits and make the valiant attempt to construct his own
family from a burgeoning romance with ‘hot to trot for bad boys’ gal, Judy
(Natalie Wood) and a friendship with John ‘Plato’ Crawford (Sal Mineo) – the privileged,
but emotionally stunted, suicidal figure of the piece.
At the crux of Rebel Without a
Cause remains a fascinating character study of teenagers lost in transition
from children into adulthood. To date, Hollywood had not addressed these
awkward years. If teens appeared at all in the movies, they were secondary
figures of fun, or oft reincarnated as pubescence already firmly imbedded with
a mid-century conservative morality, virtually expunged of any sexual frustrations
brought on by burgeoning hormones. Ray’s movie presents teens as teens,
complicated, distressed and struggling to identify their place in the reality
of adults. The teens who populate Rebel Without a Cause are not the
doe-eyed, vacant-staring ‘yes’ group, dutifully chiming into mum and dad’s
tune, but rather, meandering and socially estranged in-betweens, grasping at
whatever adolescent fancies might momentarily spark their interest. The Stern/Schulman
screenplay is acute in exposing the diversity of this newly unearthed social class,
very soon to be dictating the tastes and temperaments of their ‘rock n’ roll’
pop culture. Ray’s movie casts no aspersions and makes no judgements about what
is to follow, though, in hindsight, his picture may be considered a
foreshadowing of things to come. While Ray cannot help himself but to offer his
audience at least some superficial explanation for the reason some kids grow up
‘normal’ while others, through some strange fatalism, seem to willfully defy
adulthood to their own detriment, Rebel Without a Cause endures mostly
as a finely wrought, socio-psychological deconstruction of youth culture. The
movies as well as the generations who have since inspired them in Rebel’s
wake have, arguably, added nothing new to Ray’s social critique, beyond upping
the ante from alcohol to hard drugs, fast cars to even faster sex, angrier
music, tattoos and body piercing. As such, Rebel Without a Cause holds
up remarkably well in analyzing the perceived powerlessness of this
transitional teenage class, and the various unhealthy ways it chronically
teeters on the verge of its own self-destruction, loosely masquerading as self-expression.
In adapting the property for the
screen, director, Nicholas Ray took at least part of the movie’s title from
Robert M. Lindner’s 1944 book, Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypno-analysis of
a Criminal Psychopath. Mercifully, the movie does not reference Lindner’s
book in any other way. Warner Bros. considered Rebel a B
programmer. That is, until Dean was suddenly catapulted into overnight stardom
immediately following the release of East of Eden (1955). Suddenly
realizing he had the hottest young male under contract, Jack Warner ordered Ray’s
B&W footage scrapped. Instead, this ‘Rebel’ would be tricked
out in Cinemascope and Warnercolor; given the A-list trappings to perpetuate
Dean’s box office pull. Over the years, rumors have circulated, Marlon Brando
was first considered for the lead. However, Brando’s 1947 screen test was not
done for ‘Rebel’ despite the fact Brando performed a scene from
its partially written screenplay. Given
Dean’s breakout performance in Eden it remains highly unlikely anyone
except Dean was ever considered for the lead.
As our story begins, Jim Stark is a
senior at Dawson High School. He is brought into a police station for being
drunk and disorderly. Nicholas Ray had initially envisioned a complex prologue
to ‘explain’ Jim’s behavior and also, involve the character in the minor theft
of a toy monkey. Ultimately, only Dean’s drunken stumble, his collapse in the
middle of a quiet street in a residential neighborhood and his infatuation with
this toy made it into the final edit, and barely to be glimpsed beneath the
movie’s main titles. At the station, Jim
is attended by Sgt. Ray Fremick (Ray Platt) who doles out equal portions of
tough love and compassion as Jim’s flippancy mounts. Jim also briefly glimpses
Judy sitting in a corner awaiting the arrival of her rich father (William
Hopper). Jim has bigger problems to face, chiefly his family barging in to
straighten out his mess. Jim’s mother,
Carol (Ann Doran) is a notorious shrew, backed by her even more shrill and
uncompromising mother (Rochelle Hudson). Ray paints these gals as a pair of
destructive and emasculating females to have cuckolded Jim’s father, Frank (Jim
Backus) – devastatingly observed by Jim who has lost all respect for him. Fremick is empathetic toward Jim but informs
him that he will not tolerate further infractions. Jim is advised to ‘go
straight’ and seek out positive influences.
This is precisely what he does,
discovering the unlikeliest companion the following day while on a school field
trip at the Griffith Planetarium. Jim is interested in Judy, the poodle-skirt
and bobbysoxer gal of greaser/bad boy, Buzz Gunderson (Corey Allen). Naturally,
Buzz is not about to let Jim scope his lady. And thus, a rivalry between these
boys brews. At the same time, fifteen-year-old Plato latches onto Jim, partly in
friendship, but moreover as a surrogate brother/father figure. Judy becomes
erotically intrigued when Jim refuses to engage Buzz in a switchblade
confrontation. Buzz punctures Jim’s tires to show he means business. But after
a few taut moments of sparing, the fight is broken up and Buzz devises a more
perverse amusement to illustrate for all who is the ‘big man’ on campus. He and Jim will race stolen cars to the edge
of a seaside cliff under the cover of night. Tragically, this ‘chickie run’
goes horribly awry when Buzz’s sleeve gets tangled on the door handle. He loses
control and drives over the cliff’s edge to his death as Judy and the other gang
members look on in horror. Buzz’s fair-weather
entourage disperse leaving Jim guilt-ridden by this unexpected turn of events. Jim
tries to explain the situation to his parents. Alas, their failure to
comprehend what he is going through pushes Jim over the edge. He and his father
get into a fist fight, thwarted by Mrs. Stark.
Jim storms off to the police station, determined to do the right
thing. Unfortunately for Jim, a few of
Buzz’s gang, including Goon (Dennis Hopper) are lying in wait. The gang make
chase, but lose Jim, terrorizing Plato and Jim’s family instead in the hopes of
scaring Jim into silence.
In the meantime, Jim, Plato and
Judy hide out at an abandoned Gothic mansion. Now, this unlikely trio form their
own family unit. Plato relates portions of his fractured childhood to Judy and
Jim who have now become his de facto mother and father. Jim and Judy realize
Plato has some serious issues. But before any of them can be more fully
explored, Buzz’s gang descends on the mansion. In a fit of panic, Plato shoots
one of Buzz’s boys with his mother’s stolen revolver, his mental state unraveling
as he retreats to the observatory. In response to the gun shots, police surround
the observatory with Jim and Judy in close pursuit. Jim goes inside to calm
Plato down. Jim encourages Plato to do the right thing and surrender himself to
the authorities. In the meantime, Jim quietly removes the bullets from Plato’s
gun. Plato is afraid, but respects Jim and gradually reasons Jim is right.
However, when Jim escorts Plato outside, the police shine spotlights on them
and Plato becomes agitated yet again, charging the barricade. Unaware his gun
is not loaded the police open fire and kill Plato. Because Plato was wearing
Jim's bright red jacket at the time, the Starks mistakenly assume the police
have gunned down Jim. Upon learning the truth, Mr. Stark dissolves into tears,
vowing to be the stronger male influence Jim will need to overcome his grief
and move on. Having reconciled their father/son differences, Jim quietly
introduces Judy to his parents.
Rebel Without a
Cause is potent stuff. Fueled by a stellar cast hand-picked by Nicholas Ray,
‘Rebel’ easily became one of the biggest draws of the 1950’s with
sellout tickets months in advance. Natalie Wood rewrote her squeaky-clean
on-screen persona with this movie. The little girl had finally grown up.
Initially, Ray did not want Wood, as she had always played ‘too good to be
true’ ingénues. However, just prior to casting, Wood was involved in a
terrific car accident. Learning of an incident, in which the doctor attending
her wounds bristled about Wood being a ‘damn delinquent’, Ray decided to give her
a chance to at least audition for the role of Judy. Today, it is impossible to
imagine anyone else doing it justice. Sal Mineo brings a terrifying emotional
paralysis to Plato. At the time, Nicholas Ray was heavily criticized for his
implosion of the modeled patriarchal authoritarianism and its tragic fallout. Indeed,
Rebel Without a Cause has no ‘established’ male role models and Ray
appears to be suggesting this alone as the cause for teenage delinquency. Jim’s
dad is weak-kneed and feminized. At one point, Mr. Stark is even seen emerging
from the kitchen wearing a floral-frilly apron. At the opposite end of the
spectrum is Judy’s father (William Hopper), ineffectually in middle age to
still regard himself as cock of the walk, though far more concerned with how it
will all look if his decidedly adult daughter continues to display him childhood
affections. Judy’s hugs and kisses are lent an unnatural/unhealthy slant, curtly
dismissed by her father with appallingly brute force. At last, there is Plato –
with no male influence upon which to model himself.
In one of those Hollywood ironies
to grow more eerily weird with the passage of time, all three of ‘Rebel’s’
stars met with untimely ends – Dean, in the aforementioned car wreck, Natalie
Wood, of an apparent accidental drowning off Santa Catalina Island in 1981
(though there is renewed evidence to suggest otherwise), and, Mineo, preceding Wood
to the great beyond by six years, the apparent victim of a random stabbing at
the hands of a pizza delivery boy in a back alley. We’ll leave it at that. Viewed today, Rebel
Without a Cause marks Hollywood’s turning point into a trend to increasingly
cater to the youth market for its bread and butter. Today, ‘youth’ drives
virtually all avenues of pop culture. Important to recall, however, this was
not always the case. In hindsight, the picture also points to the first genuine
cracks in Eisenhower’s idyllic post-war American era, a suburbia presumed to
have been painted in brush strokes by Norman Rockwell, exalting the virtues of
the car with the biggest chrome fins and plushest shag carpets spread cross the
living room floor. Rebel’s ‘trouble in paradise’ scenario
was therefore something of a culture shock, the fallout from its fragmented
youth still with us today.
Warner Home Video has been rather
circumspect about its’ mastering efforts in 4K of late. Rebel Without a
Cause is advertised as a ‘new’ 4K restoration with HDR. But the Blu from
2013 was sourced from a 4K scan also. Same master here? Hmmm. Color saturation and densities are
suspiciously alike, even if the entire image does predictably tighten up,
thanks to 4K’s advanced resolution. So, expect fine detail to pop as never
before, and contrast to respectably advance, creating a greater schism between
the brightly lit outdoor scenes and moodily lit night shoots. Dean’s red jacket
positively leaps off the screen. There are subtle nuances in Judy’s powder-pink
ensemble during the ‘chickie run’. Curiously, a bit of ‘noise’ lingers in the
image. It’s intermittent and not distracting, though noticeable nonetheless. The
DTS 5.1 gets an Atmos boost in 4K as well as the original 4-track magnetic
stereo sound mix. The 4K offers only Douglas Rathgeb’s audio commentary from
2013. Mercifully, Warner Home Video has also included the original Blu-ray
release which includes (in addition to Rathgeb’s commentary), the hour-long
documentary, James Dean Remembered, half-hour plus, Rebel Without a
Cause: Defiant Innocents, Dennis Hopper’s recollections, a bevy of screen
and wardrobe tests, a handful of B&W deleted scenes sans sound, and another
round of color sequences that didn’t make it into the final cut, plus more
behind-the-camera stuff and a theatrical trailer. Bottom line: Rebel Without
A Cause is a cultural touchstone. The 4K release is the definitive edition
of this time-honored piece of Americana. Very highly recommended!
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
3.5
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