My First Time … Watching ‘Rebel Without A Cause’: Too Many Teens

If there’s anything I hate more than racism, sexism, discrimination against those in the LGBTQ community, and other various forms of blind prejudice, it’s teenagers. UGH, TEENAGERS. Anyone under the age of 20 is unequivocally the worst, right? (I mean, I’m being very gracious to anyone under 30.) With their Snapchats and their selfies and their baes and their tweets about not knowing who Paul McCartney is and what have you, teens are simultaneously the worst demographic and the one that I understand the least. And why should I? I’m a grown-ass man with no need to impress anyone still worried about taking the SATs. That is my right as a grown-up, and I’m happy to stand my ground.

That’s not to say I don’t like movies about teenagers, because they give me the chance to, once again, thank the heavens above that I’m no longer one of them. Yes, teens are terrible, but they’re terrible because life is terrible for teens. You have your parents, teachers, coaches, and your classmates all making your life a living hell because no one understaaaaands, and on top of that you have the indignity of puberty to deal with, and lord knows no one needs to have an existential crisis at the same time that little weird hairs are popping up all over your body. So, while I have complete and utter disdain for teenagers, I’m at least empathetic to their plight. After all, I was a teenager once, and I hated every single fucking second of it.

Of course, the concept of the teenager is a relatively new one, and it’s all thanks to Nicholas Ray’s stylish melodrama, Rebel Without a Cause. One of the three movies to star James Dean (and arguably his most famous, although the only one that didn’t earn him an Oscar nomination), Rebel Without a Cause pretty much defined the idea of teenage angst. Of course, nearly 60 years after its release, Rebel seems like a pretty tame movie; the film itself, while gorgeously shot and innovative (you can’t avoid references to it across various mediums, with my personal favorite being Paula Abdul’s sappy music video for “Rush, Rush” starring Keanu Reeves), is a little slight. I mean, it’s really hard to take teenagers seriously, even when I try to have compassion for their emotional existence.

But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. The point is: I had never seen Rebel Without a Cause, and I finally rectified that mistake. My thoughts below!

We meet Jim Stark in the opening credits, drunkenly laying in the street while covering up a toy monkey with a makeshift blanket. Almost immediately the film lays it on pretty thick: poor Jimbo is acting out because of problems at home! Parents just don’t understand!

We’re whisked along with Jim to the police station that specializes in juvenile crime (sure), which is where we meet Judy (no last name is necessary, she is just a young woman), played by Natalie Wood, who ran away from home after he father yelled at her for looking like a tramp for wearing lipstick. Now, if you don’t think that’s melodramatic enough…

…just wait until she pulls out her ugly cry. Eat your heart out, Claire Danes.

Also in the police station is our other supporting character, John “Plato” Crawford (Sal Mineo), who was picked up for killing dogs. Uh, what? Worried that murdering canines is, perhaps, indicative of sociopathic and/or psychopathic behavior? Shhhhh. Pay that no mind. The real trouble here is that Plato only has his housekeeper to watch over him, because deadbeat dads were also a thing back in the ’50s.

Jim’s parents and his grandmother, fresh from whatever fancy adult party they’ve attended where only adults and not teenagers get to drink alcohol, show up to the police station to pick Jim up. Of course, he’s so drunk and angry that he wasn’t invited to the party that he gives them a lot of grief, which only results in the adults fighting with each other about what’s best for Jim. Gee, why don’t they listen to the sullen, angsty teenager who is trying so desperately to speak up for himself? (Probably because he’s a drunk teenager. No one wants to listen to one of those.)

Amidst all of the fighting, Jim finally shouts, “You’re tearing me apart!” Yes, this line is apparently mangled in The Room (another cult classic I haven’t seen), but here it’s delivered with the utmost sincerity and seriousness. It is, however, just as hilarious.

The next morning, on the way to his first day of school, Jim recognizes his neighbor Judy. (“Spent a school night in the pokey, too, huh?”) She’s a Bad Girl who smokes and says things like, “I bet you’re a real yo-yo,” whatever the hell that means. (I’m blissfully ignorant of teen slang from 1995 as well as 2015.) She’s also cagey around Jim, who asks her, “Is this where you live?” She responds, “Who lives?” Wow. Such poignancy for a, what, sixteen-year-old? Really makes you think… about how Judy’s kind of a jag.

At school, Jim spots Plato, whom he also met the night before at the police station. Plato, bless his heart, eye-fucks Jim pretty hard in his locker mirror right above the pin-up photo of Alan Ladd (I guess a picture of Rock Hudson would have been too on the nose?). Anyway: Pluto is clearly gay, although you wouldn’t have known this at the time what with the restrictive Hollywood production code that felt A-OK with teenagers driving off cliffs (we’re not there yet, sorry) but clasped its proverbial pearls at the thought of two dudes kissing or whatever.

See here, how Plato cozies up to Jim in the Griffith Observatory? Cutest couple alert! Also, how weird is it that there’s a field trip to the planetarium on Jim’s first day at school, and that he also missed the bus and was late and everyone gave him grief when he drove himself there? In my day, if you missed the bus to the field trip destination you had to walk nine miles there and back, et cetera.

Symbolism alert: the big bang awakens these otherwise somber and lethargic teens and shakes them to their core.

Plato’s core: totally shook. And who does he look to for comfort? The hot new kid, obvs.

You know that thing in Hollywood movies where the new kid comes to school and is picked on despite him being literally the most attractive person on campus, because in this alternate reality even hot guys are bullied? Ha ha ha. Oh, Hollywood. My awkward, 120-pound teenage weakling self weeps, and no amount of money in Structure gift cards could buy enough polo shirts with zippers in lieu of buttons at the collars to revive me from the eye roll-induced stupor in which this scene left me.

Anyway, this gang of hoods, wearing the tough street clothes that you may find on a Ben Sherman Gilt sale, wait for Jim to emerge from the Griffith Observatory so they can puncture his tire right in front of him. Very rude, very ’50s.

Yes, that was “Buzz,” Judy’s boyfriend, who pulled out his switchblade, which only makes Jim pull out his switchblade, and the two start poking and jabbing at each other because… well, I don’t know why! When I was a teenager, I stayed at home reading books and watching movies that were too grown-up for me rather than interacting with anyone my age, so I don’t quite get the psychology behind wanting to stab someone you goes to your high school. Just seems like a whole lotta trouble for nothing, and there are so many Whit Stillman movies to watch instead, you know? (Which, in reality, meant just watching The Last Days of Disco over and over and over again, because I was such a Cool Teen.)

That evening, all the teens go home to have family dinner, and at Judy’s house that involves putting on your pokiest bra, trying to kiss your dad on the lips, and then getting really emotional when your father suggests that maybe it’s a little peculiar for teenage girls to show such affection to their fathers. I mean, I’ve got too much homosexual subtext in this movie to deal with. Someone else want to pick up on the incestuous undertones for me? Thanks.

Over at the Stark house, Jim’s father is like, “Son, why do you have blood stains all over your shirt?”

And Jim is like, “Dad, I don’t really think you are in a position to ask me questions right now, you know?”

Now, because the switchblade spat between Buzz and Jim got broken up by a cop, the teens agreed to meet up on some cliffs to have a “chickie run,” which is not a claymation film about chickens featuring the voice of Mel Gibson, but it’s about as brilliant of an idea. You see, Buzz and Jim will drive two (stolen, btw) cars next to each other, in direct route to a cliff. The first person who jumps out of the car loses, while the other one, should he jump out before the car goes over the precipice, will win.

“Hey.”

“Sup.”

“Your boyfriend doing this dumb thing?”

“Yup.”

“Cool, mine too.”

At least Judy doesn’t get hit by either of those cars! I mean, if she had, things may have turned out a lot differently.

Welp, Buzz wins, in theory, but he also dies when his car crashed down on the rocks. And then the teens scatter. “Shhh, nothin’ to see here, see you in homeroom, byeeeee!”

“I know this isn’t the best timing since you kinda played a part in the death of a guy from our high school, which is, like, totally normal stuff which is why we’re processing it so maturely, but do you want to be BFFs? No homo.”

Jim comes home and, naturally, gets into a fight with his parents, who this time literally do not understand what it’s like to be responsible for another human’s death.

Meanwhile, next door, Judy is exhibiting some similarly confusing feelings. Grief? Guilt? Horniness for the gorgeous neighbor in the sexy red jacket?

In all honesty, it’s probably the dude in the jacket she’s most concerned about. And maaaaybe how weird school will be in the morning.

Buzz’s friends, one of whom is a young Dennis Hopper, burst into Plato’s house to find out where Jim lives. They steal Plato’s address book (“Hey, sure are a lot of boy names in this thing…”), in which, as we can see, Plato has devoted an entire page to Jim’s existence, writing down his name and address in my grandmother’s perfect penmanship.

Dennis Hopper and Co. head straight to Jim’s house, where they hang a dead chicken in the doorframe and taunt his dad. Hoods in the ’50s were tough dudes!

Jim isn’t home, of course, because he has broken into the abandoned mansion out in Hollywood (I think? I don’t know LA’s geography very well) with Judy and Plato, the latter of which will gleefully break into a rendition of “Be Our Guest” if and when he’s given the chance.

The three of them are like a family now (keep in mind: they all met that morning), with Jim and Judy tucking Plato into bed and giggling about his mismatched socks. Bless his heart!

And once Plato is asleep, Jim and Judy move right onto mashing their mouths together in a completely unsexy way, because this is how people kissed in the ’50s.

Unfortunately, Dennis Hopper and his gang figure out where Jim, Judy, and Plato are. In a panic, Plato shoots one of them and loses his mind, desperate to keep his newly found family together forever. (Again, they all met that morning.)

Jim, who is somehow both a rebel and the only teenager in Los Angeles with any damn sense, tries to talk Plato down from his homicidal/suicidal tendencies by giving him his jacket, which Plato folds up and cuddles like a little baby. (Can you imagine if gay guys could marry each other? They would try to have bomber jackets as children! It’s a slippery slope, people!)

Of course, Plato loses his grip and rushes out of the Griffith Observatory, where a squad of cops are waiting to fire on the dastardly teens who have cause so much ruckus that night. And above is Jim, just as he’s about to lose his own damn mind over Plato’s dead body — and just before the film quickly wraps itself up with a Warner Bros. logo, because if this film taught me anything about the ’50s it’s that nobody back then bothered to reconcile their emotions following traumatic incidents like the avoidable deaths of teenage boys.

Final Thoughts: Look, this movie is a classic for a reason. It’s groovy, has a whole lot of style, and appealed to an audience at a perfect time: young adults, some of which grew up to make art informed and inspired by this film. And the cult of personality behind James Dean certainly helped make this movie a cinematic classic; released after his death, the film feels like a memorial to the fast-living movie star who died far too young. Nearly every shot frames him perfectly. I mean, look at this man:

That is a piece of art right there.

Having said all of that that, it’s deeply flawed in that the script kinda makes no sense. Again, it’s a melodrama: it’s supposed to be both intensely unrealistic and emotionally gripping, and the film succeeds at being both. And with its jazzy score, fashionable costume design, and touches of pulpy sensibilities. Rebel Without a Cause is a piece of American iconography precisely because of all of those flashy touches and in spite of its flimsy script. I mean, it’s a movie for teenagers that has the surprisingly artistic flourishes of a serious film. With so much style and so much angst, could you really ask for anything else?

 

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Photos: Warner Bros.