This week on «Film Friday» I bring you one of the most powerful and groundbreaking portrayals of juvenile delinquency in cinema history. This is also film that immortalized James Dean as the ultimate rebel and solidified his status as a screen legend.
Directed by Nicholas Ray, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) opens with teenager Jim Stark (James Dean) sprawled drunk on the sidewalk, playing with a toy monkey. He is then taken to the police station, where two other teens have also been brought in: Judy (Natalie Wood), who was found wandering the streets, and John «Plato» Crawford (Sal Mineo), who was caught shooting puppies. On the first day of school, Jim learns that Judy is his neighbour and offers her a ride. She refuses, and is picked up by her boyfriend, Buzz Gunderson (Corey Allen) and their group of delinquent friends. Jim goes alone to school, where he is shunned by most of the student body, except Plato, who comes to idolize him as a father figure.
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| James Dean, Sal Mineo, Corey Allen and Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause. |
After a field trip to the Griffith Observatory, Buzz provokes Jim and challenges him to a knife fight. Jim beats Buzz, so to preserve his status as gang leader, Buzz suggests stealing some cars to have a «chickie run» at a seaside cliff. That night, during the race, Buzz gets trapped in his car and plunges to his death in the sea. As the police approach, the gang flees, leaving Judy behind, but Jim persuades her to leave with him and Plato. Later, Judy apologizes to Jim for her previous treatment of him, and the two begin to fall in love.
Meanwhile, three members of Buzz's gang go after Jim with a desire for revenge. They find him at an old abandoned mansion, where he had been hiding out with Judy and Plato. Frightened, Plato shoots and wounds one of the gang and then flees. He runs to the observatory and barricades himself inside, as the police arrive. Jim and Judy follow Plato into the observatory, where Jim persuades Plato to trade the gun for his red jacket. Jim quietly removes the ammunition before returning it, and then convinced Plato to come outside. When the police notice that Plato still has the gun, they shoot him down, unaware that Jim had taken the bullets out. Grieving over his friend's death, Jim finally reconciles with his parents, Frank and Carol (Jim Backus and Ann Doran) and introduces Judy to them.
Jim Stark (James Dean): If I had one day when I didn't have to be all confused and I didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace, you know?
In the early 1950s, the American public was in a state of high anxiety due to the media's frightening reports of teenage violence and juvenile crime across the country. Parents of the era were appalled by the lifestyle of their children, who began turning their backs on the conformist ideals promoted by adult society. Teens longed for greater excitement and freedom, and used their anger and alienation to create their own culture separate from adults.
Determined to contain what they perceived as reckless behaviour, parents imposed a new set of rules upon their teenage children, which caused them to rebel. At the time, all rebellious adolescent behaviour was seen as evidence of a growing problem with juvenile delinquency. It was irrelevant whether teens were breaking laws or taboos, or simply bending household rules; the emerging youth culture of rock and roll music, fashion, «hip» slang, fast food, automobiles and open attitudes toward sex was regarded as threatening and incomprehensible.
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| LEFT: A group of teenagers having fun in a convertible car. RIGHT: Young people dancing to rock and roll music in Palm Beach, Florida in the 1950s. |
Perhaps due to his own strained relationship with his teenage son, director Nicholas Ray was inevitably attracted to what was happening with kids all over America. Ray had already dealt with the subject of juvenile delinquency in the noir Knock on Any Door (1949), starring Humphrey Bogart and John Derek, but he was dissatisfied with the film's approach. He wanted to avoid what he called «slum area rationalizations» and focus on middle-class teenagers, expanding beyond the contemporary notions of juvenile delinquency and giving them a greater emotional depth. Ray also wanted the film to be a romantic story and eventually drew from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which he considered to be «the best play ever written about juvenile delinquency,» to construct the relationship between Jim Stark and Judy.
In the late summer of 1954, Ray approached Warner Bros. and proposed a film about teenagers, «average» teenagers, unlike those portrayed in his earlier films. The studio expressed interest in the project and suggested that he adapt Robert Linder's 1944 best-selling book Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath, to which they had bought the rights to in the late 1940s and had even screen-tested Marlon Brando for a potential film version. However, Ray dismissed the book, deeming it too extreme, and decided to write the treatment himself, which he called «The Blind Run.» The studio bought the property as soon as Ray handed it to them, but insisted that he use the title of Linder's best-seller. Ray agreed, as long as he did not have to use a single word from the actual book, which seemed fine with the studio.
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| James Dean in publicity stills for Rebel Without a Cause. |
During the earlier stages of Rebel Without a Cause, Ray had nobody specific in mind for the lead role of Jim Stark, until his friend and mentor, Elia Kazan, invited him to watch a rough cut of his new picture, East of Eden (1955), starring a 23-year-old actor named James Dean. Ray was impressed by Dean's sexy and emotionally unrestrained performance in the film and immediately recognized him as the ideal protagonist for Rebel Without a Cause. Dean, however, was indecisive about taking on the role of Jim Stark, but after a few weeks of «righteous courtship,» Ray was finally able to convince him to accept his offer.
Ray later commented on the start of his friendship with Dean,
«I didn't pick Jimmy for Rebel. We sniffed each other out, like a couple of Siamese cats. We went to New York together so I could see where he lived. You should have seen his room — a tiny place, cluttered with books and boxes. We hung out together for about a week — played basketball, went to the movies, got drunk with his friends. We were really close by the time we got back to start the picture.»
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| Nicholas Ray and James Dean on the set of Rebel Without a Cause. |
When news of Ray's new project began spreading through Hollywood, every young actor in the business campaigned for a part in the film, including 16-year-old Natalie Wood. For nearly a decade, Wood had been one of the most successful and hardest-working child actresses in Hollywood, but as she moved into her teens, it became more difficult for her to get parts.
When she heard about Rebel Without a Cause, she was eager to get her hands on the script. Adding to the film's attractiveness was that fact that it starred James Dean, who had left a strong impression on her when they worked together in an episode of CBS's anthology series General Electric Theater (1953-1962). Although Stewart Stern's screenplay was not yet finished, Wood wept when she read it and immediately felt connected to the character of Judy. «I felt exactly the way the girl did in the picture toward her parents,» she said. «It was about a high school girl rebelling, and it was very close to home. It was really about my own life.»
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| Natalie Wood and James Dean as Jim and Judy in Rebel Without a Cause. |
Convinced that she was only actress who could play Judy, Wood went to the Warners casting office and begged to read for Nicholas Ray. The director, however, refused to cast her in the film due to her previous fame as a child actress, which had imposed upon her a «goody two-shoes» image, the complete opposite of what Judy was supposed to be.
Willing to do anything to get the role, Wood, who was going through her own rebellious phase, began changing her looks and befriended some of Hollywood's resident juvenile delinquents, such as Dennis Hopper, who would later be cast as a gang member named Goon. But Ray was still unconvinced. When she was involved in a car accident while on a night out with some friends (including Hopper) and was called a «goddamn juvenile delinquent» by the doctor who assisted her, Ray finally changed his mind and gave her the part.
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| Natalie Wood, James Dean and Nicholas Ray on the set of Rebel Without a Cause. |
For the role of the fragile and troubled Plato, Ray chose the 15-year-old Sal Mineo, who had recently been expelled from his high school for running with a tough, rebellious crowd. Although it is never said, since any mention of homosexuality in films was strictly forbidden at the time, the character of Plato eventually became known as the first gay teenager in the history of cinema. Starting with a picture of Alan Ladd in his school locker, Plato continues to drop hints about his sexuality and fascination with Dean's character throughout the film. Dean was aware of this and at one point even asked Ray to tell Mineo «to look at him the way he looks at Natalie.»
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| Sal Mineo, James Dean and Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause. |
Originally, Rebel Without a Cause was conceived as a black and white B picture. However, when East of Eden turned James Dean into a major star, Jack Warner decided to «upgrade» the production, budgeting it more money and ordering that the film be shot in colour.
Despite the setbacks, production went along smoothly. Ray encouraged the younger actors to hang out together and Dean, Wood and Mineo eventually became inseparable during the four weeks they worked on the film. The director also encouraged the teenage cast to improvise, change dialogue and suggest scenes, even sacrificing some of his original ideas in an attempt to make the film more authentic and relevant to the adolescent audience.
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| Natalie Wood and James Dean during the making of Rebel Without a Cause. |
On October 26, 1955, Rebel Without a Cause opened to mixed but generally positive reviews. Though some critics found the development of the parental characters weak or unfair, its three young leads were universally praised and both Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo went on to receive Academy Award nominations. Youthful audiences responded to the film enthusiastically, driving Rebel Without a Cause to number one at the box-office almost instantly. The three principal young stars became heroic teenage film icons, capturing the angst of an entire generation and serving as inspiration for the social and cultural upheaval that would begin in the 1960s. James Dean, who had tragically been killed in a car accident just four weeks before the film's premiere, became a template for teen rebellion and a voice for every troubled teenager across America.
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| LEFT: Theatrical release poster for Rebel Without a Cause. RIGHT: Natalie Wood and Dennis Hopper at the premiere of Rebel Without a Cause in Los Angeles, California. |
To this day, Rebel Without a Cause remains one of the most powerful and groundbreaking portrayals of teenage rebellion and juvenile delinquency. By giving shape to the internal feelings of teens alienated from the restrictions and contradictions of the adult world around them, the film was able to transcend its time and be just as relevant today as it was sixty years ago.
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SOURCES:
Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel (Simon & Schuster, 2005)
James Dean: The Mutant King: A Biography by David Walton (A Capella Books, 2001)
Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood by Suzanne Finstead (Random House Books, 2002)
Sal Mineo: A Biography by Michael Gregg Michaud (Crown Archetype, 2011)
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