"Rebel Without a Cause": Review

Opening in 1955, "Rebel Without a Cause" was created to portray the violence and restlessness of the youth of that time. With screenwriters Stewart Stern and Irving Shulman, and Nicholas Ray as the director and a screenwriter, each actor/actress was crafted with some sort of rebellion that usually stemmed from their lack of a decent "father-figure".

The movie begins with drunk Jim Stark (James Dean). With a father that has yet to find his manhood and stop from being bossed around by his controlling wife, Jim feels he has to act out, but also stand up and stick up for his father which usually gets him in trouble with the other judgmental teens around him. His mother forces them to move and start over fresh every time an incident is formed because of Jim, and that is where Jim is at now. At his new town Jim is already into trouble.

Jim then notices a tough-on-the-outside but needy on the inside girl. This girl, Judy (Natalie Wood), is neglected by her father who doesn't show her the love and attention she yearns for. This results in her falling for, or following anyone who will show her the least bit of affection. So since she's already apart of the "cool crowd", where she is going out with a top dog named Buzz (Corey Allen), Judy has no reason to show Jim the time of day and snubs him off just like the rest of her crowd, to keep her crowd liking her.

Sal Mineo (John "Plato" Crawford) and Jim also cross paths. Sal is a strange, unordinary boy to say the least. Although he is around the same age as Jim and the rest of the teens, in his middle to late teen years, he is still portrayed as if he is still a "boy" from his unnatural obsession with Jim as his father-figure. This is brought about from his own father's abandonment of him.

Soon, the tension between Jim and Buzz turns into violence, and later fatality. In one of the main conflicts, the game of life or death called "chicken", Buzz loses his life. And not a second after, Judy falls for Jim.

Jim feels he should turn himself in, and hopes for some stern guidence to do so from his father. But yet again, his father fails and listens and agrees with his wife for Jim not to turn himself in. Of course Jim refuses to listen, and runs away with Sal and Judy.

Carrying knives with them, Buzz's old gang is out for Jim though, and finds them, leading to the big finale. Having shot one of the guys after them, Sal is scared and Jim trys to calm him and resolve the issue, with Judy on his tail. With the cops and parents surrounding them, Sal is unable to be soothed and is shot by a police officer. Through his dad's inability to be a man and Sal's search for one Jim becomes a man. Through his son's assertiveness and Sal's death, Jim's dad starts to show signs of being a man himself.

Although most of the traits of each character were believable to have portrayed a teen in that time period, the ease of brutal violence to take place right away under frivilous situations was not realistic. Severe violence and fatality from teenage conflicts can happen, but it does not reflect the overall way that teenage dramas are dealt with. "Rebel Without a Cause" did provide characters with depth, by allowing it's audience to know a lot of the characters backgrounds to the reason they acted the way they did.

This movie showed close to the absolute worst of what could happen when parents are absent from their roles, and teens decide to take the world upon themselves. With over-exaggerated conflicts and acting that add to the drama of the movie, the audience could be affected in a sympatheic way and maybe feel the need to act. But this exaggeration could also add a cheesy feel, and will most likely, to the audience because of it's unrealisticness.