Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers.Filmed in the then recently introduced CinemaScope format and directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments. The film stars James Dean, Sal Mineo, and Natalie Wood.
Hard to say what this is actually about.
For its time it seems to be an attempt to create a breakout drama about an emerging topic in 1950's western society: "the teenager".
Teen angst wasn't new, then or ever.
The main theme I can identify is strangeness. But I think that may be largely due to my context... my view.
The 'teens' portrayed in the film are an odd mix of 'Hollywood', white people with lots of social advantages (nice school, cars and clothes) and actors who are 16 or 17 (Natalie and Sal), or 25 (Moose, one of the gang who chases Jimmy and friends was played by Jack Grinnage who is incidentally one of the very few cast members who remains living in 2021.) James Dean was 23 when the movie was shot (and looks... older.)
Adding to this strangeness is the presence of Mr Magoo/Thurston Howell III (off Gilligan's Island) as Jimmy's father (Jim Backus) and the Chief of Control (Ed Platt) as the youth welfare officer working with Police. Their later casting in well remembered roles is no fault of the movie makers in 1955, of course. But I am a fifty something guy watching in 2021.
The costuming also looks very strange in 2021. The opening scenes are set in a police station late at night where 3 troubled teens are brought in by the cops. Their parents are summoned to collect 'em. Yet the teens are clean and well dressed and their parents are 3 piece suits and cocktail dresses.... unexpected visits to the police station late at night... seriously? What was the movie director thinking here?
The movie spirals out of control from there. The story seems to centre around some ill-defined yowl of complaint by indulgent teenagers about the oppression of their feelings by frankly pretty dull authority figures and parents... and the supposed 'consequences' of hoodlum-y, truculent truancy and criminality... none of which results in any actual crime, sex, drugs or rock n roll. (But there is one death by misadventure, I guess.)
Is the dead hand of the Hollywood censorious 'moral code' at work here? I guess. Weirdly the worldwide 50's accounts of actual censor cuts to the movie in the UK and it's banning in NZ, Spain and some other territories reveals more about the embarrassing history of 'moral-panic' censorship politics than it demonstrates any actual achievement.
The major events of the movie (the knife fight at the planetarium car park and Buzz's car plunging off the cliff) seem to have nil consequence. Surely the death of a guy in a cliff plunge car accident would attract police investigation. Or an ambulance call. Or lots of rumour/reaction among other characters. Not a sausage... Very strange. This naive development of the plot undermines the movie severely. I'd call it a plot hole but it's more like a yawning chasm.
This movie is a long way from anything approaching reality.
Ultimately, I think this is the product of a middle class, parental, finger waving exercise by repressed 50's moralists who are trying to demonstrate "what's gonna happen if you muck around too much, young lady/man". (And presumably they actually demonstrate they have no idea...)
James Dean's untimely death (about two months prior to the movie's original release in late 1955) and his very expressive performance which underlines the tragedy of his shortened life are the main source of drama and probably the only reasons this otherwise silly, soapie movie is remembered 65 years on.
ABM Rating 0.9/3
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