
This overwrought domestic drama is based on the last 80 pages of John Steinbeck’s novel, set in Salinas, 1917. Cal Trask’s forlorn attempts to win the affection of his self-righteous father (Raymond Massey) represented James Dean’s first leading role in the cinema, and his emotionally raw performance ennobled misunderstood youth everywhere. Julie Harris was top-billed as Abra, the girl who comes between Cal and his brother, Aron.
Writing to Steinbeck, Kazan told him: “I looked thru a lot of kids before settling on this Jimmy Dean. He hasn’t Brando’s stature, but he’s a good deal younger and is very interesting, has balls and eccentricity and a “real problem” somewhere in his guts, I don’t know what or where. He’s a little bit of a bum, but he’s a real good actor and I think he’s the best of a poor field. Most kids who become actors at nineteen or twenty or twenty-one are very callow and strictly from NY Professional school. Dean has got a real mean streak and a real sweet streak. Dean has the advantage of never having been seen on the screen.”
The young actor died in an auto accident two months after the film was released, with two more films in the can: Giant and Rebel Without a Cause.
An amazingly high-strung, feverishly poetic movie about Cain and Abel as American brothers… Dean seems to go just about as far as anybody can in acting misunderstood.
Pauline Kael
Elia Kazan
James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey, Jo Van Fleet
USA
1955
English
Best Supporting Actress (Jo Van Fleet), Academy Awards
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Screenwriter
Paul Osborn
Cinematography
Ted D. McCord
Editor
Owen Marks
Original Music
Leonard Rosenman
Also in This Series
Getting Real charts the evolution of screen acting in American film from 1945-1980, diving into the psychological realism which took audiences somewhere deeper and more authentic than ever before.
Notorious
In the first of our new Film Studies series, Ingrid Bergman is pimped out by US agent Cary Grant to Nazi-sympathizer Claude Rains (ironically the most likeable character in the film). Hitchcock's classic is a prime example of classic Hollywood star power.
All About Eve
Arguably the best backstage melodrama of them all, this story of a young actress on the make seems to have been dipped in acid before the cameras rolled. Bette Davis is the uncomfortably peaking diva Margo Channing and it's her finest role.
Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood on Hollywood: the tale of a screenwriter, Joe Gillis (William Holden), who stumbles into the orbit of a now-forgotten movie star, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), and realizes this silent film diva could be his meal ticket.
A Double Life
In this fascinating lesser known George Cukor picture matinee idol Roland Colman plays a quintessentially English classical theatre actor, Tony John, whose dedication to playing Othello on Broadway leads to jealous fits off-stage.
Red River
Mutiny on the Bounty out on the range. Cattle driver Tom Dunson (John Wayne) is a pioneer, a self-made man who sees no reason to trust anyone but himself. In just his second film, Method man Montgomery Clift is Dunson's adopted son Matt Garth.
12 Angry Men
12 strangers (all of them white men) deliberate on the likelihood that a Puerto Rican teenager murdered his father. It's an open-and-shut case for 11 of them. But Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) is not convinced.
The Heiress
Olivia de Havilland won the Oscar for playing Catherine, a shy and insecure young woman who blossoms under the courtship of handsome gentleman caller Morris (Montgomery Clift). Her wealthy father, Ralph Richardson, looks on with severe skepticism.
A Place in the Sun
George (Montgomery Clift) takes a job in his uncle's firm. But before he can break into the family's charmed inner circle and fall in love with socialite Angela (Elizabeth Taylor), he becomes embroiled with a factory girl (Shelley Winters).
A Streetcar Named Desire
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.
On the Waterfront
Marlon Brando's definitive performance as Terry Malloy, a New York dockworker (and once a promising boxer) who loses faith in his union and his smarter but corrupt older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) after a whistleblower is murdered.