REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE [1956 / 2013] [Special Deluxe Limited Edition DigiBook] [Blu-ray] [USA Release] Warner Bros. Challenging Drama of Today’s Juvenile Violence! James Dean . . . the Bad Boy from a Good Family!
More than half a century after its original release, ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ remains one of the most enduring motion pictures of all time.
Starring James Dean in what many consider to be his finest performance, this cinematic and cultural milestone is now re-mastered and presented on Blu-ray for the very first time!
Powerfully directed by Nicholas Ray, Dean plays the ultimate teenage rebel and, together with Academy Award nominated co-stars Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, gives voice to the post-war subculture of troubled American youth. His unforgettable performance is the highlight of a film that was landmark achievement. ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ is included in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry and is on the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the 100 Greatest American Movies Of All Time.
Since its October 1955 release, ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ has become one of the archetypal films of teenage angst, an enduring hit with successive generations and a harbinger of things to come in the tumultuous Sixties. The fact that all of the film's stars, Nick Adams, James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo who died tragically and early on has also lent towards a mystique life to this powerful, ground-breaking film that continues to this day.
FILM FACT No.1: Awards and Nominations: 1956 Academy Awards®: Nominated: Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Sal Mineo. Nominated: Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Natalie Wood. Nominated: Best Writing, Motion Picture Story for Nicholas Ray. 1956 Cahiers du Cinéma: Nominated: Top 10 Film Award for Best Film for Nicholas Ray [Third Place]. 1957 Golden Globes: Win: Most Promising Female Newcomer for Natalie Wood. 1957 BAFTA Awards: Nominated: BAFTA Film Award for Best Film from any Source [USA]. Nominated: BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actor for James Dean [USA]. 1990 National Film Preservation Board, USA: Win: National Film Registry for the motion picture ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.’ 2019 Online Film & Television Association: Win: OFTA Film Hall of Fame for the motion picture ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.’
FILM FACT No.2: The switchblade James Dean's character used in the fight scene at Griffith Observatory was offered at auction on September 30, 2015 by Profiles in History with an estimated value of $12,000 to $15,000; the winning bid was $12,000. Also offered at the same auction were production photographs and a final shooting script dated August 17, 1955 for a behind-the-scenes television promotional film titled “Behind the Cameras: Rebel Without a Cause” hosted by Gig Young and that had scripted interviews and staged footage by the cast and crew (script winning bid of $225). The 1971 hit single "American Pie" contains the lyrics "When the Jester sang for the King and Queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean", widely believed to be a reference to the red jacket worn by James Dean's character in the film and an allusion to the windbreaker worn by Bob Dylan on the cover of his 1963 album The Freewheelin' by Bob Dylan. The 1980 Bruce Springsteen song "Cadillac Ranch" contains the lyric, "James Dean in that Mercury '49" as one of the people meeting at the Cadillac Ranch. The music video for Paula Abdul's 1991 hit song "Rush Rush" reimagines ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE,’ with faithful recreations of several key scenes. Paula Abdul plays the role of Judy, while Keanu Reeves plays the role of Jim Stark.
Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen, William Hopper, Rochelle Hudson, Dennis Hopper, Edward Platt, Steffi Sidney, Marietta Canty, Virginia Brissac, Beverly Long, Ian Wolfe, Frank Mazzola, Robert Foulk, Jack Simmons, Tom Bernard, Nick Adams, Jack Grinnage, Clifford Morris, Dorothy Abbott (uncredited), David Alpert (uncredited), Jimmy Baird (uncredited), Paul Birch (uncredited), Harold Bostwick (uncredited), Paul Bryar (uncredited), John Close (uncredited), Chuck Hamilton (uncredited), Chuck Hicks (uncredited), Skipper Huerta (uncredited), Louise Lane (uncredited), Nelson Leigh (uncredited), David McMahon (uncredited), Edward McNally (uncredited), Peter Miller (uncredited), Ralph Moratz (uncredited), Bruce Noonan (uncredited), House Peters Jr. (uncredited), Stephanie Pond-Smith (uncredited), Charles Postal (uncredited), Nicholas Ray (uncredited), Gus Schilling (uncredited), Almira Sessions (uncredited), Joel Smith (uncredited), Bert Stevens (uncredited), Dick Wessel (uncredited) and Robert B. Williams (uncredited)
Director: Nicolas Ray
Producer: David Weisbart
Screenplay: Stewart Stern (screenplay), Irving Shulman (adaptation) and Nicholas Ray (from a story)
Composer: Leonard Rosenman
Cinematographer: Ernest Jacob Haller (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (WarnerColor)
Aspect Ratio: 2.55:1 (CinemaScope)
Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
French: 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
Spanish: 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
German: 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
Italian: 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
Português: 1.0 DTS Mono Audio
Czech: 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
Polish: 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
Japanese: 1.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German SDH, Italian SDH, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish and Turkish
Running Time: 111 minutes
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Warner Home Video
Andrew's Blu-ray Review: The concept of ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ [1956] was to focus on telling a story about a confused middle class teenagers living in Suburbia. How the story was told, was a different matter altogether. Back in 1955, when the film was first released, the film was controversial at the time as it seemingly depicted teenage rebellion and moral decay in the 1950s. Yet there is a lot that happens in the course of the film that has made it become the classic that it is heralded as. Originally conceived to be a cheaply produced black-and-white movie, Warner Bros had switched the production into a larger budget mode and with colour filming when it became apparent that James Dean was one of the rising stars of the time.
From the opening frame of the film, James Dean began to deliver an iconic performance. He was creatively enmeshed in his characters. The first shots of the film show James Dean lying on the ground and is playing with a toy monkey. This was improvised. He asked the filmmaker Nicholas Ray if he could try something. This became the opening of the film and quite a fascinating moment. James Dean was capable of such amazing acting. He had so many ideas.
The story of ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ primarily follows the teenagers Jim Stark [James Dean], Judy [Natalie Wood], and Plato [Sal Mineo] as they try to make sense of their lives while a sequence of events sends things spiralling for all of them. At the start of the film, the three teenagers are all in a police station, each needing their parents to get them. Jim's parent's argumentative nature around Jim Stark makes him more restless and distant. Judy's father is shockingly distant from her with a cold detachment. Plato's father abandoned him. The characters in this story each deal with their own feelings of displacement.
One of the greatest sequences in the film is when the characters first meet each other while attending a school field trip to an observatory. There, while witnessing a theoretical show displaying the destruction of the entire universe, the wide expansiveness of the world is seemingly even colder to them than before. It's a perfect metaphor for how the three characters are going through such severe feelings of isolation and misunderstandings.
The performances by James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo are equally great. Each actor brought a memorable performance to the screen. Over the course of the story, Jim and Judy seem somewhat parental to the Plato character. They even enact a “game” of sorts at one point, inhabiting these roles. James Dean and Natalie Wood had immense screen chemistry together and were perfectly in synch with each other during this film. The confusion and angst felt from the characters was well demonstrated by the performances.
Director Nicholas Ray did a really excellent job as the director of ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.’ The story is a complicated one to tell, and was not a small task for Nicholas Ray to attempt to realise as director. Everything about the film was stylistically 'ace' and he managed to have the actors create compelling characters that could be universally fascinating and compelling.
The film has incredible pacing and flows from one scene into the next with a remarkable vitality that's essentially fundamental to the film's success. This universally appealing story was one he managed to tell with a heart and soul in the filmmaking, which makes the tragic ending so powerful that one can truly consider it amongst the best film endings of all time.
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE MUSIC TRACK LIST
Ride of the Valkyries (1856) (uncredited) from "Die Walküre" (Music by Richard Wagner) [Hummed by Jim in the police station]
I’LL STRING ALONG WITH YOU (1934) (uncredited) (Music by Harry Warren) [Played on the car radio when Jim pulls up to Judy]
FIVE O’CLOCK WHISTLE (1936) (uncredited) (Music by Gene Irwin and Josef Myrow) [Played on the car radio after the dedication]
Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4 (Lullaby) (uncredited) (Music by Johannes Brahms) [Hummed by Judy while stroking Plato's hair]
* * * * *
Blu-ray Image Quality – In my estimation, ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ is of the best looking film out of the three James Dean films. There is something about its unique visual style that impresses me the most. Perhaps it has something to do with the colour and the way it brings the best out of the costumes, especially the famous red jacket James Dean wore during the film. All three films contain excellent cinematography, and yet I found the work that was done by the Academy Award® winning cinematographer Ernest Jacob Haller. The original 2.55:1 theatrical aspect ratio has been preserved. The 1080p image quality is splendid and has an average bit-rate is around 25 mbps. This is certainly not a huge sampling rate, but it is on par course for Warner Bros. and it's adequate for this presentation. I found the film to have good colour depth and decent clarity. The film could have been sharper. However, the sharpness in this transfer is notable, nonetheless, and far better when compared to earlier presentations of ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.’
Blu-ray Audio Quality – Unlike the audio presentation of ‘Giant’ received, Warner Bros. has given ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ an audio makeover of sorts with a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio presentation. I'm all for keeping the original audio intact but this is actually not that bad of a sound mix for the film. Surprisingly, I found it sounded rather authentic with the material. There's a bit more dimensionality to the mix, especially when the car sequences are taken into account, and with regards to the way score music was implemented. However, I will also maintain that this is an authentic sounding mix that is generally an impressive and satisfactory experience. It's still a front-heavy mix. It implements a good range of bass into the sound-stage. It's simply a nice expansion to the audio presentation and not an awful attempt at utilising sound effects beyond their capabilities. Film fans won't feel disappointed by the presentation as long as the audio-purist in them doesn't kick it into over-drive on this one.
* * * * *
Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Audio Commentary by Douglas L. Rathgeb: Douglas L. Rathgeb recorded this audio commentary before publishing “The Making of Rebel Without a Cause” [2010], but he was obviously already at work researching the book. While he tends to fall too easily into describing the action on screen, his audio commentary is full of interesting details concerning the film's production, with particular emphasis on issues with the Production Code, which peppered the project with questions and concerns. Douglas L. Rathgeb identifies all the locations, talks about how the film's opening and ending differ from the original script, reviews the numerous censorship issues that had to be addressed, and discusses Warner Bros. decision to release ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.’ on schedule despite James Dean's death a month before. Douglas L. Rathgeb also sprinkles interesting bits of trivia throughout his monologue, especially the mansion used in the film was the same one where 'Sunset Boulevard' was shot; and Natalie Wood broke Bette Davis' record for the longest crying scene in a Warner Bros. picture; Ann Doran, who played James Dean's mother, who really detested her role; and director Nicholas Ray makes a cameo appearance in the film's final seconds. In addition, Douglas L. Rathgeb debunks the theory that Plato is a homosexual, points out where James Dean strays from the script and improvises, and examines the background of the "chickie run" race. The audio commentary is short on anecdotes, behind-the-scenes gossip and the affair between Natalie Wood and Ray is only briefly alluded to, and we also get biographical information, but it's still interesting from a production standpoint. It is up to you to decide whether it is interesting enough to listen to.
Special Feature: James Dean Remembered [1974] [480i] [1.37:1] [66:22] This 1974 documentary was shown on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment series and Hosted by Peter Lawford. This ABC's special remembers the everlasting legacy of the myth James Dean, the magic of his performances that still resonates with audiences many years after his tragic death. All he got was only three pictures and that was enough to make him a popular cinematographic icon. His co-stars and friends share stories with host Peter Lawford, talking about who James Dean was, his conflicted personality, his style of acting, his qualities as a friend and his importance to moviegoers and artists. Contributors include: Peter Lawford [Host / Narrator], James Dean (archive footage), Sammy Davis Jr., Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Leonard Rosenman, Steve Allen, Rock Hudson (voice) and Elizabeth Taylor (archive footage).
Special Feature: Rebel Without a Cause: Defiant Innocents [2005] [480i] [1.37:1] [36:30] This 2005 documentary traces the development and production of the film, although many of the participants were no longer available. The major contributor is screenwriter Stewart Stern, whose distinctive voice seemed to mesh most closely with director Nicholas Ray's original inspiration for the film. Contributors include: Douglas L. Rathgeb [Author], William Bast [James Dean biographer], Faye Nuell [Natalie Wood's stunt double], Beverly Long [Helen], Frank Mazzola [Crunch], Corey Allen [Buzz], Jack Grinnage [Moose], Steffi Sidney [Mil] and, briefly, Dennis Hopper.
Special Feature: Dennis Hopper: Memories From The Warner Lot [2010] [1080p] [1.78:1] [10:31] In this candid interview conducted late in his life, Dennis Hopper recalls his years as a Warner contract player, with emphasis on his roles in the films ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ and ‘Giant.’ as well as the wondrous atmosphere of Warner Bros. Burbank studio. Though his tenure at Warner Bros. was brief, Dennis Hopper recalls it with great fondness, and his enthusiasm and charisma enhance this personal remembrance.
Special Feature: Screen Tests [1956] [480i] [1.37:1] [6:27] Filmed in black-and-white, this very polished and involving screen test focuses on Sal Mineo, but James Dean and Natalie Wood provide critical and expert support.
Special Feature: Wardrobe Tests [1956] [480i] [1.37:1] [5:05] Primarily James Dean and Corey Allen, with various gang members forming different groups and was filmed in black-and-white, and features some sound, so we hear the off-camera instructions and appreciate the interplay between the actors and whoever is giving them instructions.
Special Feature: Black & White Deleted Scenes [Without Sound] [1956] [480i] [1.37:1] There is no "play all" with this feature is included, and we get to view the following: Kids Exit the Planetarium [2:42]; Gang Outside the Planetarium [1:12]; Gang Outside the Planetarium (Alternate Angle) [2:41]; Plato on the Bus [3:01] and Kids Run Down the Ramp [0:55].
Special Feature: Color Deleted Scenes [Without Sound] [1956] [480i] [1.37:1] Again, there is no "play all" with this feature is included, and we get to view the following: Kids Drive Up to School [1:36]; Kids Walk Up to School [0:57]; Kids Leave School [0:31]; Jim Sees Judy [0:55]; Kids Leave the Planetarium Auditorium [3:04]; Jim Hustled into Precinct [0:51]; Gang Attacks Plato [0:49]; Gang Attacks Man [1:43]; Cops Arrive at the Planetarium [0:58]; Parents Arrive at the Planetarium [1:20] and Alternate Ending [0:36]
Special Feature: Behind the Cameras [1956] [480i] [1.37:1] Here we get to view a series of promos, narrated by Gig Young and almost unbearably stiff. The listing by name is somewhat misleading, because Natalie Wood and James Dean are interviewed only briefly. James Dean's interview, which came to be known as the "drive safe" spot, is positively eerie: Natalie Wood [7:57]; Jim Backus [5:47] and James Dean [7:44].
Theatrical Trailer [1956] [480i] [1.37:1] [2:25] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.’ What a shame Warner Bros. could not of done an upgrade for this trailer and the right aspect ratio.
BONUS: Here we get a stunning 44 Page DigiBook and includes the following: BIRTH OF REBEL; THE SCRIPT;GATHERING BACKGROUND; THE PERFECT CAST; SUPPORTING CAST; KNIFE FIGHT; THE WILD RIDE OF PRODUCTION; BRINGING REBEL TO ITS AUDIENCE and THE REBEL LEGACY. We also get a plethora of some amazing rare black-and-white publicity photos, especially of the main actors and behind-the scene images.
Finally, the dynamic and influential ‘REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE’ seemed to speak to an entire generation when it was first released. I feel that is still the case today and it will be the case tomorrow: Future generations of film lovers will find something to connect to in this essential masterpiece. The Picture Quality resulting from MPI's restoration efforts are fantastic and this is a must-own Blu-ray of an important film in American cinema. That is why I am so honoured to add this to my other Two James Dean Special Deluxe Limited Edition DigiBook Blu-ray Collection, as this is history in the making and you will be a fool not to purchase these classic James Dean films. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller - Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
