Wringing Last Dimes Out Of Dean

First-Run Saturation In L.A. and Vicinity

More Of Keeping James Dean Alive

I've guessed before that Elvis was salve for the loss of James Dean. Love Me Tender had arrived just behind Giant in 1956, a year after Dean's passing. Now for summer 1957, there was Loving You and few month's later Jailhouse Rock to see out mourning for a youth idol of whom fresh footage was finally spent with The James Dean Story. Latter was a documentary done on spec by Midwest filmmaker Robert Altman, with partner George W. George. Warners fleshed out their work and used The James Dean Story as backstop to product that wouldn't sustain bills alone. I checked Variety and found for most part that it played as second feature to The Black Scorpion, latest of yearly monsters WB sold with help of TV saturation directed at kids with quarters and nothing better to do with them. Dean was a known adjunct to thrill bills, having been "materialized" at spook shows where his image was projected onscreen as conjurers on stage called for him to speak from beyond. Time for reverence had thus past, so what more fitting than to pair last theatrical glimpse of Jimmy with jumbo arachnids as advertised on TV?

Impressive L.A. Showcase, Including Stand At the Egyptian, For Revived Pair

James Dean is for me the most fascinating personality to come forth in the 50's, both for how he was sold and the impact he had. Alec Baldwin and his "Essentials" guest David Letterman hashed over Dean this past weekend on TCM, where East Of Eden was shown to maximum benefit of true HD. This was not how most people of their age group saw East Of Eden, or Rebel Without A Cause, for the first time. I'm surprised Dean gathered new admirers after these films were sold to television in 1960-61, so brutally compromised as they were. Neither played network, first-runs on local stations likelier as late shows than primetime (owl slots for first-run of both in our Charlotte viewing market). A couple of generations discovered James Dean in this reduced circumstance, making it hard to realize how dynamic and lovely East Of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause had once been on wide screens. Chances are Baldwin and Letterman caught them first, during youth, on the harsh, square box, as others of us did. That lingering impression could be why Letterman expressed some reservation about Dean's performance in East Of Eden. He wouldn't have had opportunity to optimum-see the film until years after it first appeared on television.

I watched some of Eden after Baldwin/Letterman's intro. There was an overture, which I assume played at key 1955 dates ahead of Eden credits. Listening made me realize that it was Leonard Rosenman's music that put much of sting in James Dean's tail. There had not been a score quite like it --- emotional, modern yet symphonic in a way to please those of an older school. Four-track stereo no doubt cut right to nerve of listeners. It still conditions us for something powerful. Rosenman was kept on to score Rebel Without A Cause. I'd say much of magic we call James Dean came of this man's music. East Of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause are like two movements of a Rosenman concert. I don't wonder that there was a record album issued in 1956, part of ongoing "tribute" to departed Dean. Eden and Rebel as a double feature filled seats that year as fully as new releases, one of handful of occasions when a revived pair went ideally together. Eden had gone out with Battle Cry in early '56 as first swing at the post-mortem Dean fence, but it was with Rebel later that year, and through 1957, where wickets lit up. They still play nicely in tandem.