NFR Project: 'Rebel Without A Cause' (1953)

 

NFR Project: “Rebel Without A Cause”

Dir: Nicholas Ray

Scr: Stewart Stern, Irving Shulman

Pho: Ernest Haller

Ed: William H. Ziegler

Premiere: Oct, 27, 1955

111 min.

“Why do we do this?”

“You got to do something.”

The last, a rejoinder from Buzz the teenage bad guy, and nearly his last words. A minute later, he’s plunging off the edge of a cliff to his doom, screaming.

The mood of Rebel Without A Cause is nihilistic. In the American society of the time, it judged that nothing the adult world had to offer was worthwhile. Their hypocrisy and self-involvement invalidated them from being able to lead their families. Teens were cut loose from both dependency and responsibility, living in an intense, confused time when everything was unsatisfactory, crazy-making. Being a teenager was a curse. A naturalistic drama that plays out like a horror movie, Rebel persists because of its incredibly well-written script and enthusiastic and innovative direction from Nicholas Ray. (Ray started making it as a black-and-white B movie; when Dean became popular, the studio decreed he remake it in color and in Cinemascope.)

The movie was supposedly based on Robert M. Linder’s 1944 book of the same name, a case study of a criminal psychopath. Stern’s screenplay is vastly different and, fortunately, brilliant. It outlines and justifies the alienated feelings of its teenaged central characters, drawing us into compassion for them as the adult world contracts around them, literally killing their souls.

It’s the swan song of actor James Dean, his only starring role (he died at age 24 in a car crash a month before the movie’s premiere), and his charisma and appeal cannot be understated here. Whatever one may say about his Method approach to the role, he shows that he was rapidly understanding film acting in a fairly profound way. It would have been fascinating to watch his progression as an actor. He remains a perpetually youthful teen icon, largely because of this film.

Here he is Jim Stark, the teenage Everyman, a would-be knight of maturity and compassion who just wants to be left alone. His Jim has just moved to town after moving away from trouble somewhere else. His parents are well-off; his mother is castrating, his father is impotent. Seventeen years old, he starts his first day at his new school, and is immediately picked on by the cool kids, who happen to be brain-dead thugs.

Jim makes friends with Plato (Sal Mineo), a not-so-repressed gay fellow classmate. An outing to the planetarium ends up with a knife fight, and a pledge to race later in the evening. Jim looks for guidance from his parents, but they are useless. Jim lashes out angrily, and drives away furiously.

At a nearby cliff overlooking the ocean, Buzz challenges Jim to a chicken race in cars to the cliff. First one who jumps out is chicken. Buzz gets stuck inside his car, falls off the cliff, and dies.

Now his friends are after Jim. They attack his house, track him down. Meanwhile, Jim falls for the late Buzz’s girlfriend Judy (Natalie Wood). Jim tries to turn himself in, unsuccessfully. Jim and Judy escape to an abandoned house where they meet up with Plato, who unknown to them is packing a gun. The bad kids go after Plato – and he shoots one of them.

The cops and the parents show up. Plato is trapped inside the observatory; Jim goes in to get him out peacefully. He takes Plato’s bullets away. They walk out, but Plato panics, running and brandishing the gun. The police kill him. Jim grieves; he’s assured by his dad that he did “all that a man can do.” He introduces his parents to Judy.

Rebel can’t give us a happy ending. Jim and Judy’s troubles, we feel, are just beginning. Buzz dies following the code; Plato dies because he can’t follow the code. There’s no way to win.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Court Jester.

NFR Project: 'Oklahoma!' (1955)

 

NFR Project: “Oklahoma!”

Dir: Fred Zinnemann

Scr: Sonya Levien, William Ludwig

Pho: Robert Surtees

Ed: George Boemler, Gene Ruggiero

Premiere: Oct. 11, 1955

148 min.

The opening of Oklahoma! on Broadway in 1943 marked a new chapter in the history of the American musical. With a few exceptions, musicals in the first half of the 20^th century were scattershot affairs – the songs usually had nothing to do with the story. Now, numbers grew organically out of the plot and out of the characters’ development. You can read my notes on that original production here.

It’s a simple story. Cowboy Curly (Gordon MacCrae) loves Laurey (Shirely Jones in her film debut). However, Laurey is claimed by hired hand Judd (Rod Steiger). This romantic triangle takes up the bulk of the film, although there is a second one involving Ado Annie (Gloria Grahame), peddler Ali Hakim (Eddie Albert), and cowboy Will Parker (Gene Nelson).

When time came for a film version, no expense was spared. Utilizing Technicolor and wide-screen filming, the story takes on an epic quality. This was director Fred Zinnemann’s only musical; he was also challenged by shooting in 70mm. His compositions are awkward, and many times he simply resorts to shooting the singer statically in the center of the screen.

Neither Steiger nor Grahame can sing, which retards the movie’s appeal. The real highlight of the film is Laurey’s dream sequence, in which she vacillates between Curly and Judd. It’s danced out in an elaborate number choreographed by Agnes DeMille. Inserting a ballet into the middle of a musical was unheard of before this; fortunately, the movie preserves this innovation.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Rebel Without A Cause.

NFR Project: 'Night of the Hunter' (1955)

 

NFR Project: “The Night of the Hunter”

Dir: Charles Laughton

Scr: James Agee

Pho: Stanley Cortez

Ed: Robert Golden

Premiere: July 26, 1955

92 min.

This haunting, barely redeemed nightmare of a film is a Southern Gothic horror story/fairy tale that registers as the only directorial outing of actor Charles Laughton. It’s an extraordinary movie that makes me wonder what other wonders Laughton might have produced if he had been given the chance.

Read Peter Rainer’s comprehensive essay on this entry here at the National Film Registry.

The story is shot plainly and given a heavily shadowed, storybook-like illumination filled with resonant images. We are introduced to the story by Mrs. Cooper (Lillian Gish), who speaks to us suspended in the starry sky. She is telling a group of children a story, and she warns of wolves in sheep’s clothing – and the camera swivels down to earth and shows us the deranged and murderous “preacher,” Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) in flight. He likes to kill widows and steal their money and belongings. He converses with God, convinced that his homicidal impulses are blessed by Him.

Powell has a complex about sex. He sits with the crowd at a burlesque show, inwardly disapproving of the goings-on there. (His switchblade knife protrudes its blade from his pocket as he watches – an obscene erection.) He is nabbed by the police for stealing a car and goes off to jail.

We move on to the children John and Pearl, whose father Ben Harper (Peter Graves) has killed two men and made off with $10,000. He is hunted down by the police, but he manages to hide the money in Pearl’s doll. He makes John swear to protect Pearl and to never reveal the location of the money, then is hauled away to jail.

In jail, Powell and Harper bunk together. Powell tries to get Harper to tell where the money is, to no avail. Harper is hanged – and when Powell is released, he heads down to Harper’s place to find the money. Flashing in and out of bouts of anger, Powell harasses and cajoles the children, trying to find out where the money is. He courts John and Pearl’s mother Willa (Shelley Winters), mouthing sanctimonious sentiments that fool all the adults, but not the children.

Powell and Willa marry; Powell withholds sex from here and convinces her that she is a woeful sinner. She takes his condemnation to heart, and testifies at his revival meetings. She prepares herself for him with prayer at night, but he cuts her throat and sinks her body in the river.

He takes control of the children and torments them into confessing where the money is. However, the children escape him via the river and float downstream in a skiff. Finally, they wash up at the home of Mrs. Cooper, a saintly but tough woman who takes in stray children. Powell follows them and finds them, but Cooper holds him off with a shotgun. Powell returns at night to kill everyone and grab the money, but Cooper shoots him. He hides in the barn and is rousted out by the police. Upon his arrest, John inadvertently reveals the money.

Powell is tried and found guilty. A lynch mob comes after him, and he barely escapes a necktie party. The children settle into life at Mrs. Cooper’s, and enjoy Christmas with her.

Laughton creates a mythic dream world, shooting a majority from the viewpoint of the children, turning us into their accomplices. They get a crash course in the battle between good and evil, and good wins out – this time.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Oklahoma!