James Dean is one of the most iconic film stars of all time, despite making only three feature film before his life and career were cut tragically short.
Rebel Without A Cause
Rebel Without A Cause was the second of Dean's features, it hit the big screen back in 1955 and saw the actor take on the central role of rebellious youngster Jim Stark.
The movie marked the return of Nicholas Ray to the director's chair, while Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen, and William Hopper were some of the other great names on what was a very exciting and young cast list.
Rebel Without a Cause followed a rebellious young man - Jim Stark - with a troubled past who comes to a new town to try and start afresh. Here he finds friends, enemies and decides to take on the bullies.
Rebel Without A Cause is the movie that everyone thinks of when you mention the name 'James Dean' and it is not hard to see why everyone was getting excited about this young actor. Dean really is the driving force in this film as Stark is a young man who doesn't know who he is, where he fits in, and what the future holds for him.
Dean captures the fear and uncertainty perfectly and it is a performance that still resonates with a young audience - we have all been there and asked the same questions that this character is asking throughout the film.
And it is these themes and ideas that make Rebel Without A Cause such an enduring movie as it was one of the first films to really explore the moral decay of America's youth and the struggle that teenagers faced at that time as they tried to figure out where they fitted into society.
The movie was designed to show that decay of youth in middle America, question parental style, and expose the ever-growing rift between the two generations... and it is something that director Nicholas Ray achieved perfectly.
Of course, Rebel Without A Cause is a hugely entertaining and now iconic movie, but under the watchful eye of Ray, it also became a very powerful social commentary of the youngsters in America at that time. For me, Rebel Without A Cause was the finest film of Ray's directing career and cemented him as one of the great filmmakers of the fifties.
The world 'classic' is a movie that is banded around a little too often for my liking, but Rebel Without A Cause truly is a classic movie. It is a film that resonated with a younger audience and paved the way for all of the teen and coming of age movies that have followed over the years.
Rebel Without A Cause went on to be nominated for three Oscars - Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Mineo and Wood, while Ray also got a nod for Best Writing. Sadly, Dean's terrific central performance was overlooked. However, he did pick up two posthumous Best Actor nods for his performances in East of Eden and Giant.
Rebel Without A Cause is a movie that really has stood the test of time and is as relevant today as it was when it was released back in 1955. Sadly, Dean never got to see the success of this film - he died before it was released - nor how it has lived on and found new audiences over the decades.
With just three movies Dean became one of cinema's biggest superstars and the iconic red jacket images from Rebel Without A Cause well and truly live on. It is a shame that he never got to fulfil his full acting potential.
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