Just Classics: "Rebel Without A Cause"

I don't know if the actors or the script made this film a success... but the movie just kinda sticks on you, in a good way. ;) Rebel without a cause is just one of those classics. But ofcourse Natalie Wood and especially James Dean are the true icons that gave the film life. I'm learning that the actors kinda help the movie along (not only by their acting) but by giving the movie "perceived value." Heck, that's why filmmakers go through the trouble of hiring a cameo name for a million dollars for a one week shoot. Oh well, as much as the actors add to the film, a great script is what a movie needs. I'm still kinda debating whether it was the script or the actors on this movie, heh. Anyways, it's a classic nonetheless.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

When people think of James Dean, they probably think first of the troubled teen from Rebel Without a Cause: nervous, volatile, soulful, a kid lost in a world that does not understand him. Made between his only other starring roles, in East of Eden and Giant, Rebel sums up the jangly, alienated image of Dean, but also happens to be one of the key films of the 1950s. Director Nicholas Ray takes a strikingly sympathetic look at the teenagers standing outside the white-picket-fence '50s dream of America: juvenile delinquent (that's what they called them then) Jim Stark (Dean), fast girl Judy (Natalie Wood), lost boy Plato (Sal Mineo), slick hot-rodder Buzz (Corey Allen). At the time, it was unusual for a movie to endorse the point of view of teenagers, but Ray and screenwriter Stewart Stern captured the youthful angst that was erupting at the same time in rock & roll. Dean is heartbreaking, following the method acting style of Marlon Brando but staking out a nakedly emotional honesty of his own. Going too fast, in every way, he was killed in a car crash on September 30, 1955, a month before Rebel opened. He was no longer an actor, but an icon, and Rebel is a lasting monument. --Robert Horton

Tweet