(1955, ELIA KAZAN) In California’s Salinas Valley, as World War I looms, two sons, one good and one bad, battle each other for the love of their father Raymond Massey — of course the bad one’s James Dean, in his electrifying debut, and the only one of his three legendary hits released before his death. Kazan’s adaptation of just the last 80 pages of John Steinbeck’s lengthy novel was in a way a metaphorically autobiographical portrait of himself at Dean’s age; the father trouble that both Kazan and Dean had in real life was fomented on the set: Massey couldn’t stand Dean, the resulting tension contributing to the “misunderstood kid” image that turned Dean into an international icon. On a different plane was Dean’s relationship with Julie Harris as the gentle Abra; her sympathy and understanding both on and off-screen was what kept Dean going throughout the picture. This was Kazan’s first film in Scope and color, both of which he used with experimental mastery. Long unavailable due to rights issues, this is the film’s first theatrical engagement in over ten years. “Feverishly poetic...Dean seems to go just about as far as anybody can in acting misunderstood.” – Pauline Kael.
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(1955, NICHOLAS RAY) “You’re tearin’ me apart!” wails James Dean’s Jim Stark to his apron-clad dad Jim Backus, and a generation of frustrated Eisenhower-era teens chimed in. Fifty years later, the icon of tormented youth Dean incarnated is more potent than ever, perhaps because, unlike the leather-clad punks of more exploitive 50s j.d. flicks, Rebel’s trio of maladjusted high-schoolers (Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo) are suburban every-kids, the poignancy of their performances now heightened by the real-life violent deaths that would later befall all three. Director Nick Ray’s fable of adolescent angst is heightened by a garish CinemaScope palette, a touch of the Tragic Unities (the action unfolds within 24 hours), and, in the celebrated planetarium scene, the elevation of teen torment to the cosmic plane. DOLBY STEREO
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•James Sheldon, who directed James Dean in two live television dramas, will introduce the 7:30 show of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE on Monday, June 20

(1956, GEORGE STEVENS) As Dimitri Tiomkins’ pop hit score thrums, James Dean stalks along the horizon line, marking out the boundaries of his land; then when a gusher hits, he rushes off to tell his former boss’s wife Elizabeth Taylor, leaving a black hand print on Rock Hudson’s pristinely white front porch. The epic battle between Texas cattle ranchers (old money) and Texas oil barons (new money), as Hudson’s Jordan Benedict is goaded both by Dean’s rough-hewn Jett Rink, formerly his hand, now his rival, and his Maryland horse country wife Taylor. Ten Oscar nominations, including both Hudson and Dean for Best Actor, with Stevens winning his second for Best Direction.
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