Dean's performance continues to resonant, still evoking today the same anger, anguish, and confusion of growing up that it did half a century ago.
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It's hard to believe that screen icon James Dean, whose name is known to probably every filmgoer in the world, starred in only three films before his tragic death in a car accident. When Warner Bros. call their boxed set the "Complete James Dean Collection," they aren't kidding. There was "East of Eden," released in 1955, "Rebel Without a Cause" also released in 1955, and "Giant" in 1956. And that was it. (The three movies are available separately as well as in the box.)
What was there about this young man whose mystique so enthralled the world half a century ago and continues to enthrall it to this day? A look at his first starring role in the screen adaptation of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" may help to explain part of it. After all, the movie not only starred Dean, it also starred Richard Davalos, Raymond Massey, Julie Harris, Jo Van Fleet, and Burl Ives. Yet, good as the cast is, who but a dedicated film buff remembers anyone in the picture but Dean?
Although the movie is widely accepted as the definitive version of Steinbeck's novel, it contains, of course, less than half of what Steinbeck wrote, appropriately centering on the relationship of the father and son. I say "appropriately" because even though James Dean gets second billing in the credits, it is his picture all the way. He is, in a word, unforgettable.
Director Elia Kazan, no stranger to "message" pictures ("Gentleman's Agreement," "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Viva Zapata," "On the Waterfront," "Baby Doll," "The Last Tycoon"), was a friend of Steinbeck, and when Steinbeck's novel became a best-seller, Kazan was quick to pick up the movie rights and sell the idea to Warner Bros. He was not quite so quick to choose Dean as his star, however. His first thought was to cast Marlon Brando in the part of the son, Cal, with an eye toward then-unknown Paul Newman as well. But Brando, whom Kazan had directed in "Zapata" and "Streetcar," was at thirty too old for the role, and small-time stage and TV actor Dean caught the director's attention. In screen tests, Dean seemed to possess just the right combination of youthful angst and enthusiasm. When Steinbeck met the actor for the first time, he is said to have exclaimed, "Jesus Christ, he is Cal!"
With a little help from Steinbeck, noted Broadway and Hollywood writer Paul Osborn adapted the script. Osborn had already done "Madam Curie," "The Yearling," and "Portrait of Jennie," and he would go on to do the screenplays for "Sayonara," "South Pacific," and "The World of Suzie Wong." However, neither the director nor the writer (both of them Oscar nominated here for their work) could stop Dean, a "method" actor, from improvising many of his scenes. In an audio commentary, Richard Schickel notes several instances where Dean completely threw himself into the part and began doing things spontaneously. Among the most celebrated is a climactic moment with Raymond Massey as his screen father that so threw Massey off, he could hardly respond to the young actor. Massey apparently came to hate Dean, but Kazan loved the young man's abilities and left much of Dean's impromptu bits in the picture.
Steinbeck's story line, as the title suggests, is based loosely on the Cain and Abel story in Genesis. Here it is the rivalry between two older teen brothers for their father's love. Dean plays Caleb Trask, the brooding teen, always slumped, inarticulate, intense, and confused. Richard Davalos plays his brother Aron, the supposedly "good" son. And Raymond Massey plays the father, Adam, ultraconservative, ramrod straight-arrow, always quoting the Bible, proud of Aron but frustrated at the unruly behavior of the bad seed, Cal.
The setting is Steinbeck country: the town and agricultural valley of Salinas, where the author grew up, about twenty miles inland from the fishing village of Monterey on the central California coast. The time is 1917, just before America's entrance into the First World War.
The Trasks used to be farmers but now live in the town of Salinas. Cal is jealous of his father's love for his brother and feels that his father neglects him. Meanwhile, the father's dream is to freeze vegetables in order to ship them across country without spoiling. When Adam's dream fails, Cal determines to win his father's love by engaging in a business deal to repay him all the money he lost in the refrigeration scheme.
At the same time, Cal is determined to find his mother, a woman the father says left them when they were babies, went East, and disappeared. Cal doesn't believe it and through sheer intuition (and the suggestion of an acquaintance) suspects that the madam of a Monterey brothel may be his mother. The woman, known in the film only as Kate, is played by Jo Van Fleet in an Academy Award-winning portrayal for Best Supporting Actress. After some pestering, Cal gets Kate to admit that she is, indeed, his real mother. At which point he asks her for money! No, not hush money or blackmail but a serious business deal. Kate's house of ill repute makes a good profit, and Cal asks her to finance the business deal for him that will get him the money he needs to give to his father. It's a sweetly naive occasion for Cal. At first she tells him he's got a lot of nerve coming to her. "Why?" asks Cal. "I didn't do anything to you."
Interestingly, a young Julie Harris gets top billing in the movie, even though her role is smaller than that of any of the Trasks or the mother. Ms. Harris plays Abra, Aron's girlfriend and soon-to-be fiancée. Why first billing? I suspect because Harris was the best-known name in a cast that, with the exception of Massey, consisted of relative unknowns. In any case, at first she finds Cal scary; but as time goes on, the innocent girl becomes attracted by his wild ways. "I don't have to explain anything to anybody," exclaims Cal.
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