Amazon.com video review:
When people think of James Dean, they probably think first of
the troubled teen from Rebel Without a Cause: nervous,
volatile, soulful, a kid lost in a world that does not understand
him. Made between his only other starring roles, in East of
Eden and Giant,
Rebel sums up the jangly, alienated image of Dean, but also
happens to be one of the key films of the 1950s. Director Nicholas Ray
takes a strikingly sympathetic look at the teenagers standing outside
the white-picket-fence '50s dream of America: juvenile delinquent
(that's what they called them then) Jim Stark (Dean), fast girl Judy
(Natalie Wood), lost boy Plato (Sal Mineo), slick hot-rodder Buzz
(Corey Allen). At the time, it was unusual for a movie to endorse the
point of view of teenagers, but Ray and screenwriter Stewart Stern
captured the youthful angst that was erupting at the same time in rock
& roll. Dean is heartbreaking, following the method acting style of
Marlon Brando but staking out a nakedly emotional honesty of his
own. Going too fast, in every way, he was killed in a car crash on
September 30, 1955, a month before Rebel opened. He was no
longer an actor, but an icon, and Rebel is a lasting
monument. --Robert Horton
