Search - Rebel Without a Cause on DVD

Content Advisory: Violence, Adult Situations Movie Release: 1955 DVD Release: 09/21/1999 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, French SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 51 mins Studio: Warner Home Video Members Wishing: 12 Genres: Drama, Teen Movie, Family Drama, Coming-of-Age, Juvenile Delinquency Film See Also: Rebel Without a Cause

This landmark juvenile-delinquent drama scrupulously follows the classic theatrical disciplines, telling all within a 24-hour period. Teenager Jimmy Stark (James Dean) can't help but get into trouble, a problem that has forced his appearance-conscious parents (Jim Backus and Ann Doran) to move from one town to another. The film's tormented central characters are all introduced during a single night-court session, presided over by well-meaning social worker Ray (Edward Platt). Jimmy, arrested on a drunk-and-disorderly charge, screams "You're tearing me apart!" as his blind-sided parents bicker with one another over how best to handle the situation. Judy (Natalie Wood) is basically a good kid but behaves wildly out of frustration over her inability to communicate with her deliberately distant father (William Hopper). (The incestuous subtext of this relationship is discreetly handled, but the audience knows what's going on in the minds of Judy and her dad at all times.) And Plato (Sal Mineo), who is so sensitive that he threatens to break apart like porcelain, has taken to killing puppies as a desperate bid for attention from his wealthy, always absent parents.

The next morning, Jimmy tries to start clean at a new high school, only to run afoul of local gang leader Buzz (Corey Allen), who happens to be Judy's boyfriend. Anxious to fit in, Jimmy agrees to settle his differences with a nocturnal "Chickie Run": he and Buzz are to hop into separate stolen cars, then race toward the edge of a cliff; whoever jumps out of the car first is the "chickie." When asked if he's done this sort of thing before, Jimmy lies, "That's all I ever do." This wins him the undying devotion of fellow misfit Plato. At the appointed hour, the Chickie Run takes place, inaugurated by a wave of the arms from Judy. The cars roar toward the cliff; Jimmy is able to jump clear, but Buzz, trapped in the driver's set when his coat gets caught on the door handle, plummets to his death. In the convoluted logic of Buzz' gang, Jimmy is held responsible for the boy's death. For the rest of the evening, he is mercilessly tormented by Buzz' pals, even at his own doorstep. After unsuccessfully trying to sort things out with his weak-willed father, Jimmy runs off into the night. He links up with fellow "lost souls" Judy and Plato, hiding out in an abandoned palatial home and enacting the roles of father, mother, and son. For the first time, these three have found kindred spirits -- but the adults and kids who have made their lives miserable haven't given up yet, leading to tragedy. Out of the bleakness of the finale comes a ray of hope that, at last, Jimmy will be truly understood.

Rebel Without a Cause began as a case history, written in 1944 by Dr. Robert Lindner. Originally intended as a vehicle for Marlon Brando, the property was shelved until Brando's The Wild One (1953) opened floodgates for films about crazy mixed-up teens. Director Nicholas Ray, then working on a similar project, was brought in to helm the film version. His star was James Dean, fresh from Warners' East of Eden. Ray's low budget dictated that the new film be lensed in black-and-white, but when East of Eden really took off at the box office, the existing footage was scrapped and reshot in color. This was great, so far as Ray was concerned, inasmuch as he had a predilection for symbolic color schemes. James Dean's hot red jacket, for example, indicated rebellion, while his very blue blue jeans created a near luminescent effect (Ray had previously used the same vivid color combination on Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar). As part of an overall bid for authenticity, real-life gang member Frank Mazzola was hired as technical advisor for the fight scenes. To extract as natural a performance as possible from Dean, Ray redesigned the Stark family's living room set to resemble Ray's own home, where Dean did most of his rehearsing. Speaking of interior sets, the mansion where the three troubled teens hide out had previously been seen as the home of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Of the reams of on-set trivia concerning Rebel, one of the more amusing tidbits involves Dean's quickie in-joke impression of cartoon character Mr. Magoo -- whose voice was, of course, supplied by Jim Backus, who played Jimmy's father. Viewing the rushes of this improvisation, a clueless Warner Bros. executive took Dean to task, saying in effect that if he must imitate an animated character, why not Warners' own Bugs Bunny? Released right after James Dean's untimely death, Rebel Without a Cause netted an enormous profit. The film almost seems like a eulogy when seen today, since so many of its cast members -- James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Nick Adams -- died young. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Dean - Jim Stark
Natalie Wood - Judy
Corey Allen - Buzz Gunderson
Sal Mineo - Plato
Dennis Hopper - Goon

This is the kind of DVD that could help sell thousands of players. Rebel Without a Cause was released in three separate laserdisc editions with varying degrees of technical success, but the film-to-video transfer on the DVD runs circles around them all for quality. The letterboxed image looks clearer than even the restored theatrical print that ran in theaters a few years ago; the transfer is so sharp, deep and rich, that this disc begs for showing on a big-screen monitor -- CinemaScope and Warnercolor never looked so good as they do here, and the sound is mastered at a decent volume and displays a rich tone. The surviving technicians should beam with pride over what's been done with their work, which has been broken down into 35 well-chosen chapters.

The movie, a groundbreaking work about suburban juvenile delinquency, is almost a cliché today it's so familiar as a work of cinema and a fixture of popular culture. James Dean, who was 24 playing a 17-year-old (thus setting a precedent that Steve McQueen would follow in The Blob), overacts at various points, utilizing his preferred method-acting technique, but the movie holds up better than anyone could reasonably expect 45 years later. Dean, Natalie Wood (in an Oscar-nominated performance), and Sal Mineo portray a trio of teenaged lost souls who find each other, a brief period of happiness, and tragedy in a suburb of Los Angeles. The supporting cast, including veterans like Edward Platt and Jim Backus (in a rare dramatic role) and newcomers like Corey Allen and Dennis Hopper, performs as admirably as the three stars. The quality of the film presentation would be impressive enough, but this DVD is chock full of extras. One of the highlights -- worth the price of the disc, in fact -- is the documentary Rediscovering a Rebel. Utilizing recently uncovered outtakes, including early black-and-white footage of the confrontation at the observatory (later abandoned when the studio switched to color for the film, with Dean wearing glasses, which were dropped from the color reshoot), this featurette greatly broadens viewers' understanding and appreciation for the film and the way it was developed. There is a lost opening scene that explains the presence of the toy monkey in the foreground of the extant opening; the original closing shot of the shutting of the observatory dome, which was dropped; and a screen test in which Dean is seen in the company of Corey Allen and a real L.A. gang member (hired as a technical expert), with whom Allen nearly had a fight. The latter test is not only fascinating to watch for a glimpse of actors stepping out of character, but very helpful for identifying all of the bit players who did not become famous. Sal Mineo's screen test, on a set used in A Streetcar Named Desire, is also fascinating, especially as it is intercut with the scenes from the finished film. The remainder of the supplement includes a somewhat limited selection of bios on Dean, Wood, and Nicholas Ray and a half hour of material from the 1955 television series Warner Bros. Presents, in which actor/host Gig Young tells about the production, the shooting of the knife fight at the Griffith Park Observatory, and also interviews Natalie Wood and producer David Weisbart (both Young and Wood spend too many seconds remarking on the food served on the location shoot). Closer to the reality behind the film's evolution is the segment hooked around a Jim Backus interview, which tells how the script developed; Backus' interview is very entertaining and one of the bright spots in this package. Most viewers will want to dial up the interview with James Dean, which has been shown many times for its irony (he doesn't talk about acting or moviemaking, but gives his admonition to teenagers about safe driving, not too many days before he was killed in a car crash); this segment offers an unexpected bonus -- a fairly involved and largely accurate account of the way the story department at Warner Bros. worked, showcasing the work-in-progress status of several films audiences saw by the millions. The supplementary section also includes the trailers to all three of Dean's Warner Bros. movies. Watching the trailer for Giant, one is struck anew by the movie's sheer scope and depth, and wishes it were available on DVD at this writing. And it's all assembled on one of the most straightforward DVD menus yet found, one that automatically advances step by step as viewers run through the supplementary sections, but also responds to manual selection. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide