Rebel Without a Cause
Short description
Jim Stark is the new student in town, a teenager from a comfortable background whose history of scrapes has already worn out his welcome at other schools. Craving some kind of stability, he befriends Plato, a troubled and isolated classmate, and grows close to Judy, a local girl with a difficult reputation. Judy, however, is involved with Buzz, the leader of a group of rebellious youths, and his hostility toward the newcomer sets off a confrontation between the two.
Nicholas Ray directed the film, which followed Johnny Guitar on his filmography and was written by Stewart Stern. James Dean plays Jim, with Natalie Wood as Judy and Sal Mineo as Plato; Jim Backus and Ann Doran appear as Jim's parents, and Corey Allen plays Buzz. Made by Warner Bros. Pictures, the film had a budget of about two million dollars.
On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.6 from roughly 103,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.5 from around 1,800 votes, while a critics' rating stands at 8.6 from 85 reviews, higher than either audience score. Its worldwide gross of five million dollars was a modest return on its cost, but the film has remained a point of reference for portrayals of teenage alienation and family conflict in postwar America.
What's left behind the scenes
- In the United Kingdom, the film was banned from release until 1968.
- During the scene where Jim takes out his anger on the police station desk, Dean actually broke his hand.
- Jim imitates the voice of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo. The irony is that Jim's father is played by actor Jim Backus, who also voiced this character. Backus even taught Dean how to properly speak in Magoo's voice.
- The tragedy of the film continued off-screen, as all three main characters died untimely deaths. Mineo was murdered in West Hollywood on February 12, 1976, at the age of 37. Wood drowned under mysterious circumstances at the age of 43. Dean himself crashed a racing car at over 100 miles per hour on a highway in California on September 30, 1955, at the age of 24.
- Throughout almost the entire film, James Dean wore a white T-shirt, which, since its invention, had been exclusively underwear. Before Dean, actors like Marlon Brando and John Wayne had appeared in T-shirts on screen, but it was this film that popularized the T-shirt and made it a full-fledged outerwear garment: immediately after the film's release, T-shirt sales increased significantly, first in the US and then worldwide.
- Marlon Brando was considered for the lead role, but the idea had to be abandoned – two years before 'Rebel Without a Cause,' Brando starred in a similar film called 'The Wild One' (1953).
- Ray was initially reluctant to give the role of Judy to Natalie Wood, as he considered her too naive and inexperienced. Wood quickly learned to smoke and changed her outlook on life, proving she was capable of being mature and adult.
- One of the actors, Frank Mazzola, was a member of a street gang. He was the one who taught Dean how to fight with knives.
- The film's title is based on the title of a 1944 scientific paper by Dr. Robert M. Lindner, dedicated to the problems of hypnoanalysis of juvenile delinquents (“Rebel Without A Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath”).
- The Stark surname is an anagram of the Trask surname of one of the characters in the film "East of Eden" (1955), played by Dean.
- Filming period: March 28 – May 25, 1955.
- It was during the filming of this picture that Dean particularly developed a passion for speed: one of the most famous and intense scenes in the film was dedicated to races on the edge of a cliff, in which Jim Stark participated to prove himself.
- According to a poll conducted by the British multiplex chain UCI Cinemas, the film was recognized as the most stylish film in the history of cinema.
- The man approaching the observatory at the very end of the film was played by director Nicholas Ray. Rumor has it he appears in all of his films.
- Director Nicholas Ray spent several nights with youth gangs in Los Angeles to feel the atmosphere of the events for the future film.
- The film was originally intended to be in black and white, and several scenes had already been shot, when Warner Bros. decided to make it a color film for prestige. The studio was encouraged by the enormous box office success of Elia Kazan's "East of Eden" (1955) – the previous film starring James Dean. Ray was particularly happy to shoot the film in color, as he already had several vivid symbols prepared. Practically every color (from Jim's red jacket to his blue jeans) had its own symbolism.
- The entire film takes place over 24 hours.
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