James Dean --- Part Two


I thought I’d come to the wrong place when Rebel Without A Cause opened with three neatly dressed teenagers filing docilely into police headquarters. Now granted we're there to learn how delinquency was a blight upon middle and upper-class neighborhoods as well as the ghettos, but honestly, how could Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood, and James Dean represent a real challenge to the status quo, even in 1955? Natalie’s adorable in a Warnercolor Teen Vogue outfit that suggests anything but a troublemaker, while Sal looks ready to crawl into a bassinet. Imagine an officer’s relief today if juvenile cases could be so benign and non-threatening as these! Sal and Jim are even wearing coat and tie --- but then so were other Rebel Without A Cause cast members when Warners arranged a field trip for them down to the local station house. We get but glimpse of that among DVD extras, but there they all are, dressed as if for Sunday school and showing proper respect for L.A.’s law enforcement community. It really was an idyllic world back then. Jim Stark’s high school is an orderly environment where all of kids wear neat outfits (Natalie’s scarf!) and even gang members lean toward natty sport shirts and leather jackets any of us would be thrilled to own. There’s also Cinemascope and color to put candy-coat gloss on this picture postcard of Southern California before real cultural breakdowns got underway. Rebel Without A Cause depicts a Sunny Cal of pure sunlight, breathtaking views from nostalgic locations (especially the Griffith Park Observatory) and "troubled" kids who just need a hug from Daddy.

I can better appreciate James Dean’s popularity, and ongoing cult status, after watching Rebel Without A Cause. He plays his part like a star. If this guy’s an outsider, then we all should have been Jim Stark for first day at high school. It's clear he will succeed Buzz as leader of the pack, probably within days of  incidents dramatized here. After East Of Eden, there was no way Dean would really play a geek. The perhaps unintended leadership qualities Jim Stark displays may have been natural consequence of Dean dominance over fellow cast members, with much of dialogue emphasizing his feelings of inadequacy undercut by Dean’s studied application of movie star charisma during what was said to have been improvised exchanges. He and Wood and Mineo are no more authentic teen-agers than any contract player Warners might have cast. They’re auditioning here for the quick transitional leap to adult stardom, and Dean in particular plays the attractively confused teen we’d all like to have been.

Wouldn’t it be great to go back and experience Rebel Without A Cause with first-run audiences during that fall and winter of 1955? No matter the quality of today’s presentation, we'll none of us comprehend seismic effect this one had when new. We can appreciate how brilliantly calculated Rebel was in flattering its youthful audience with personalities and situations designed to make them feel good (or better) about themselves. Hollywood today could use a Nicholas Ray (and his writers) to teach thing or three about manufacturing teen product. My only complaint was contrivance of Act Three. Action in the old mansion was fine, but chasing around with the gang and extended police standoff tends to crowd toward the end. Still, Rebel is marvelous reflection if not of the time, then at least a romantic conception of the time. It isn’t nasty or unpleasant like Blackboard Jungle, having all of gloss and big studio money denied to cheapies like High School Caesar, Runaway Daughters, the like. Certainly they didn’t earn like Rebel --- $3.9 million in domestic rentals for Rebel Without A Cause as opposed to $334,000 Runaway Daughters brought back. Rebel scored overseas as well, with an additional $3.2 million in foreign rentals, for a worldwide $7.1. Final profit was a stunning $3.9 against negative cost of $1.4 million. Good as this was, it couldn’t touch $9.0 earned by Blackboard Jungle, easily the top kick of all juve dramas, with eventual profit of $4.9 million.
















Think Dean’s cool? Well, after comparing Gig Young interview segments from the old Warner Brothers Presents series (included on the DVD), I’ve adopted Jim Backus as my role model for a suave and self-assured middle-age. The Dean footage we’ve known from a hundred documentaries and compilations --- he shuffles around in the Jett Rink outfit and mumbles something about road safety (and ironically, within weeks, he … no, I’ll spare you that). Backus I’d not seen before. His piece had been buried in Warner vaults since pterodactyls flew (or at least since the ABC 1955 broadcast date), so I had no idea what a cool, unflappable pro he was off-screen. Dean looks pathetic compared with this more than seasoned trouper. Could Jimmy have ever measured up to senior Jim’s level of relaxed professionalism? Imagine an alternate mid-sixties universe where James Dean not only lives, but winds up competing with Russell Johnson for the "Professor" role on Gilligan’s Island. I can imagine Sherwood Schwartz consulting with Jim Backus --- You worked with this guy once when it looked like he’d be big. Should we use him for this? Then Backus’ thoughtful reply, Yeah, why not? Maybe he’s learned something since then. Let’s give him a chance. After all, he was fairly good in that episode of Hawaiian Eye …