Tagline: …and they both come from ‘good’ families!
Rebel Without a Cause (1955) is a film that sympathetically views rebellious, American, restless, misunderstood, middle-class youth. The tale of youthful defiance, which could have been exploitative – but wasn’t, provides a rich, but stylized (and partly out-dated) look at the world of the conformist mid-1950s from the perspective of the main adolescent male character – a troubled teen with ineffectual parents, who faces a new school environment.
The screenplay (by Stewart Stern from an adaptation by Irving Shulman of an original storyline synopsis by director Nicholas Ray) was based on an actual case study (contained in Dr. Robert Lindner’s 1944 factual book titled Rebel Without a Cause: The Story of a Criminal Psychopath) of a delinquent, imprisoned teenage psychopath in the post-war years. The film was originally titled The Blind Run – the same as the title of the series of vignettes, both violent and strangely erotic, that Ray had penned. The actual film’s title, Rebel Without a Cause, was the same as the title of Lindner’s psychological study – signifying the rebellious and idealistic protagonist’s search for a ’cause’ – honesty and decency in a hypocritical world.
The colorful wide-screen Cinemascope feature is most remembered for being the film that best presented the talent of young charismatic cult star James Dean, shortly before his premature death in 1955. It opened at the Astor Theatre in New York on October 29th, 1955, about a month after the death of its star (on September 30, 1955) on a highway in his sports car.
t also served as a springboard for the acting careers of its two other stars Natalie Wood (in her first non-child ‘adult’ role) and unknown 16 year-old actor Sal Mineo. It affords a classic, semi-glamorized portrait of three troubled, frustrated, anguished, and identity-seeking teenagers – all outsiders, alienated and outcast from the world and values of parents and adults, who attain maturity through rebellion and tragic circumstances. In the film, Dean formed a friendly bond with the other two characters: Wood as confused teenaged Judy, and Mineo as a strange, adoring boy named Plato – the film’s sacrificial lamb by film’s end.
Rebel Without a Cause(1955)
Directed by: Nicholas Ray
Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen, William Hopper, Rochelle Hudson, Dennis Hopper, Edward Platt, Steffi Sidney, Marietta Canty, Virginia Brissac
Screenplay by: Stewart Stern
Production Design by: Malcolm C. Bert
Cinematography by: Ernest Haller
Film Editing by: William H. Ziegler, James Moore
Costume Design by: Moss Mabry
Set Decoration by: William Wallace
Art Direction by: Malcolm C. Bert
Music by: Leonard Rosenman
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 27, 195
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