CinemaCynics.com

54 years ago today, the movie world was changed forever....and not for the better. 

At the intersection of two California highways (Highways 466 and 41),  James Dean was killed driving his Spyder Porsche when he collided with the driver of a 1950 Tudor Coupe.  He died almost instantaneously.

He was driving too fast, he was cocky, and he died too damn young.

It's amazing that the Dean legacy was built on only 3 film performances.  For the uninitiated, they were East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant.  He only lived to see one released (East of Eden).  His entrance onto the screen world as Cal Trask in the adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel sent tremors of excitement through the film world.  Who was this burning across the screen like a meteor?  He dominated the film, often interpreting and improvising scenes to suit his own brooding sense of the character.  He drove co-star Raymond Massey (Papa Trask) insane when he improvised a scene where young Cal is again rejected while trying to win the love of his father.  It's a great cinematic moment.  From this moment on, Dean owned the misunderstood and troubled teen genre. 

He solidified his image as the outcast with Rebel Without a Cause.  His Jim Stark is a disaffected youth trying to find his moral compass in a society that has all but failed him.  The adults come across as bumbling and ineffectual.  With a domineering mother and a whipped father as his role models he seeks solace in fellow outcasts Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo) and manages to form a surrogate family to compensate for the zoo at home.  The film ends on a sense of hope and the possibility of reconciliation between the generations, but only after a tragedy occurs that shakes everyone out of their stupor.  This is the first true teen angst film and the one by which all others are measured.  It is the pivotal and iconic Dean, the one that gave birth to the legend.

His final film, Giant was not as successful (in my estimation) as his previous two efforts.  Dean moved on from his teen roles with this adapatation of the Edna Ferber novel of the same name.  He actually played a supporting role to Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, who starred as the leads in this tale of a Texas ranch family through a period of 25 years.  The first half of the film is just fine...Old Hollywood style epic and Dean has some good moments in those early scenes as the brooding (what else?) and resentful ranch hand Jett Rink.  The second half of the film is less successful....the aging makeup applied to the actors is ridiculous and it's hard to take any of them seriously...it's distracting, in fact.  At over 3 hours, the film is also too long for it's own good.  Still....it's got Dean. 

Much speculation has been bandied about concerning the trajectory Dean's career would have taken had he lived.  My own guestimate is that his career would have mirrored Paul Newman's the most and he probably would have gotten some of the roles that Newman made famous....he could easily have slipped into the role of troubled alcoholic Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or that of pool shark Eddie Felson in The Hustler.  He could certainly have made us hate him as Hud Bannon as well.  Unfortunately, we'll never know and can only imagine the plethora of rich film roles that would have followed Dean through the rest of the 1950's and through the 1960's. 

If you've never seen one of Dean's films, my recommendation is to use this paltry and dismal time at the movies to put, at the very least, East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause on your Netflix que.  See for yourself the power of timeless and ageless performances that will forever be etched on the hearts of movie lovers everywhere.

Often imitated, but never matched or surpassed, he continues to inspire the little bit of rebel that exists in all of us. 

"Dream as if you'll live forever.  Live as if you'll die today."-----James Byron Dean