A review of the 1955 classic “Rebel Without A Cause”
I confess that – other than clips on film courses – it took me 70 years finally to view this classic, but the delay meant that I caught it at the British Film Institute where I could view it in the original CinemaScope and Warnercolor. The work is famous as the third and last of the movies starring the charismatic James Dean who, at just 24, was dead by the time it was released.
In this coming-of-age movie, Dean plays Jim Stark, an angry young man full of teenage angst, searching for a sense of family. Early on, he cries out to his bickering parents: “You’re tearing me apart”. In the course of one day and night in Los Angeles, he has a knife fight outside the Griffith Observatory (much later to feature memorably in “La La Land”), he takes part in fatal ‘chickie run’, and he finds consolation of a sort with fellow high school students, Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo).
Although the messaging is not exactly subtle (especially in these more sophisticated times), the film is a triumph for Nicholas Ray who both originated the story and directed.