REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (director/writer: Nicholas Ray; screenwriter: Irving Shulman/Stewart Stern/from a Nicholas Ray story; cinematographer: Ernest Haller; editor:William H. Ziegler; cast: James Dean (Jim Stark), Natalie Wood (Judy), Sal Mineo (Plato), Jim Backus (Jim's father), Corey Allen (Buzz Gunderson), Edward Platt (Ray), Dennis Hopper (Goon), Ann Doran (Jim's Mother), Marietta Canty (Plato's Nanny), Frank Mazzola (Crunch), William Hopper (Judy's Father), 1955)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
By the time this film was released, James Dean, the idolized 24-year-old star of the film and soon-to-be eternal movie-cult icon for all generations of estranged youth, had died in a head-on car collision on September 30, 1955, shortly before this film was released. Coincidentally, one of the themes of the film, is playing 'chickie run', that is the cars race to a bluff and the first to jump before going over the cliff, is a chicken. Everyone knows how bad it is to be called a chicken--it could mess up one's self-image worst than the wind can mess up a ducktail haircut for a teenager in the 1950s--as this liberal-inspired social commentary film plunges right into that 1950s Eisenhower era mind-set, without trepidation.
Nicholas Ray's teenage angst film about rich, postwar, suburban L.A., juvenile delinquents who are alienated and can't cope with their disturbing home life, is arguably the best rebellious youth film of the 1950s and though dated, it still plays well today because the issues facing the teenagers haven't changed that much. It was based on an actual case study of a teenage delinquent. It's a film that sympathetically sides with the rebellious youths and their befuddled parents, and it doesn't even demonize the police. It airs out the prevalent problems of the mid-'50s for these youngsters; such as, loneliness, alienation, lack of love, fitting in with their peers, their identity crises, and the lack of communication with their folks. It also hints about a troubled youth, Plato, played with delicacy by Sal Mineo, whose problem is that he is gay in a time and place where no one talked about such things or knew what to say about it. Though, the film stresses that his loneliness problem stems from no father at home and no mother there to console him and tries to make his withdrawal the problem rather than his homosexuality, yet there are strong hints that he is still in-the-closet about his sexual choice. In his high school locker, there is a glossy fan photo of Alan Ladd pasted on it. He also seems to be attracted to Dean in a physical way, though the film tries to make it seem that he mostly wants to induce Dean into being his surrogate father.
The three main stars of the film, cross paths in the opening scene, in the police station, which is just the right place for the mixed-up innocents to meet. Jimmy Stark (Dean) is brought in for public drunkeness, lying on the street with a toy monkey. He has just moved here and has no friends. He is visibly upset that his crone-like mother (Doran) and gutless father (Backus), who are always quarreling, are still arguing in the police station. He feels that they are not listening to him and that his bumbling father is not a good role model. When questioned by the youth officer, Ray (Edward Platt), who uses the kindly social worker approach in dealing with the young offenders, Jimmy tells him the truth about his problems and seems to form a positive relationship with him (I couldn't help laughing at that scene and how punky Dean seemed). Judy (Wood) has been picked up wandering the streets, mistaken for a prostitute, and tells Ray the reason for that, is that her father (William Hopper) called her a dirty tramp. She can't get her father to offer her fatherly love, as he seems to be repelled by her. The officer calls home and gets her mother to take her home, when she wanted her father to be the one to come for her. The third innocent, is John Crawford, who goes by the nickname Plato (you know, like the philosopher). He is being looked after by his black nanny (Canty), who can't control him. He is at the station because he used his mother's gun to shoot puppies, seemingly upset because his mother was not there for his birthday. Another officer than Ray, who had been handling his case, recommends that his nanny tell his mother to get Plato a psychiatrist.
The film takes place over one long 24-hour period of delirious activity, starting on an Easter night in the police station and ending the next night with police surrounding the planetarium, where the same three principals from the opening scene at the police station are now at, but are now in more serious trouble.
Jimmy is naturally nervous about going to his new school the next morning, but he is not concerned about teachers or subjects, but about making new friends. He is attracted to Judy, but she rebuffs him for the crew she stays with, that is a gang of ruffians, led by her leather-jacketed boyfriend Buzz (Corey Allen). All these well-off kids ride to school together in this open car, acting loud and stupid, proud to be dumb Americans. Supposedly, they will later on go on to become what middle America is about, reflecting dearly on the values it grew up with and pining for those "good old days" of Eisenhower laissez-faire policies.
Jimmy's first contact with them is at the school visit to the nearby D.W. Griffith Planetarium, and it results in taunting and confrontation outside the building. He is dressed for school in a suit and tie, while Plato is dressed in a sweater and tie. They are not looking for trouble, in fact, he is trying his best to avoid it. But Jimmy is hung-up on being called a chicken, afraid that he will become like his father if he doesn't respond. He thinks his dad should have answered his harping mother back a long time ago. So when egged on to a knife fight with Buzz, after Buzz slashed his tire with his switchblade, which he would have ignored except Buzz and the gang made chicken sounds. The fight is broken up by a security guard, but a 'chickie run' is arranged for that night.
At home, Jimmy tries to tell his father what is going on, why he is bleeding, by asking his father to tell him what to do about a matter of honor. Mr. Stark is ironically dressed in an apron and can't directly answer his son's question: "What do you have to do to be a man?"
The rest of the night turns into a Shakespearian tragedy, as Jimmy bails out in the nick of time during the 'chickie run', but Buzz's jacket gets stuck in the car door and he goes over the cliff. Judy gets a ride home with Jimmy and she becomes his new girlfriend, just like that. At home, Jimmy tells his parents that he wants to go to the police station and tell them what happened, but they try to talk him out of that. He then runs out of the house but has no luck getting the police to listen to his story, as Ray is not there. Crunch (Mazzola) and the rest of the gang, who were called into the station for questioning, decide that he has squealed to the police on them and go after him.
Jim finds Judy and they go to a deserted mansion that Plato told him about, that is near the planetarium. Plato will join them there later, bringing his mother's gun along for protection, after he was visited by the gang and roughed up. They become like an alternative nuclear family, the one they were searching for in their own homes.
They find some peace during the later hours of the night. But their happiness is short-lived, as Crunch and the boys find them in the mansion and Plato wounds Crunch who is coming after him. He then runs to the planetarium to escape the rest of the gang. With the police surrounding the planetarium, Jim and Judy run into the place to talk Plato into peacefully giving up. But despite Jim's efforts, the ill-fated Plato panics and is shot down by the police, as he tries to run, frightened by the glare of the police lights. After the incident, Jim's father reconciles with his son, telling him they will face the world together from now on, that you tried to help Plato, but it's not your fault, you did all that you could do, that any man can do. The picture ends as the light of dawn is barely breaking through the darkness and an unidentified man (Nicholas Ray) is walking up the steps of the planetarium.
For all its aging and the changing mores of the times and the ever-increasing complexities of modern youth, this creaky film still has a rawness about it, something that is intangible, that gets into your spine and brings out a chill or two, that tells you this dramatization was real.
REVIEWED ON 4/15/2000 GRADE: B+
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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