50-Year-Old “Rebel Without A Cause” Movie Shows That In Terms Of Our “Rebels” We Have, Indeed, Come A Long Way Baby - In The Wrong Direction
Today, being what half a century ago was called a “rebel,” a “juvenile delinquent,” means, all too often, being a murderer armed with automatic weapons, a rapist, a dope-dealer and user and much more. But, this was not always true.
Rebel Without a CauseIn opening remarks preceding this movie, actor John Goodman told how he first saw this flick in St. Louis when he was a kid and he thought Dean was “like a real monster.” But, supposedly, something about Dean said: “Pay attention,” that this movie said something about “the common feeling of alienation, I guess —- that you’ve got something to say but don’t know what it is.” Well, amen! If ever a motion picture didn’t know what it was saying, it was this film.
“Rebel” opens with Dean crawling down a sidewalk. Because of his “plain drunkenness” he is taken to a police station where, among other acts of rebellion, he screams, imitating a police siren, and his Mother asks him not to hum. Also at this police station is Dean’s girlfriend-to-be, Natalie Wood, who’s there because of a run-in with her Father who told her she is a “tramp” and he tried to wipe off her lipstick.
Another character at this police station, is played by Sal Mineo who’s there because he shot some puppies with a gun. When a cop wonders if Mineo has seen a psychiatrist, the black woman housekeeper with him says no, that his Mom doesn’t believe in psychiatrists. To which this cop replies: “Maybe she’d better start.” Young folks like this were, back then, called “juvenile delinquents.” How blessed we would be if this was all youth crime consisted of today.
We see an obviously mixed-up Dean, confused by his parents’ advice, yelling: “You’re tearing me apart!” He beats on a cop’s desk. The cop, who appears to be some kind of shrink, talks, sensitively, with Dean who notes that his parents “never made sense” —- as if Dean would know what made sense, which is doubtful, to put it charitably. Dean says he wishes his Dad, just once, had knocked his Mom out, cold, because his Mom and her Mom had made “mush” out of his Father. Dean says that all he wants is just one day when he didn’t have to feel “all confused” and “ashamed” of everything and felt that he belonged “some place.” This helpful cop tells Dean to call him day or night whenever he needs someone to talk to.
On his first day at a new high school, Dean leaves for school actually wearing a tie! —- which he quickly takes off. He even has his hair combed. When he meets Natalie Wood, they exchange cynical cracks about life and he asks if he can —— carry her books for her?! But, she jumps in a car with her friends, telling Dean, prophetically: “I bet you’re a real yo-yo.”
Shortly before school begins, we are startled by what sounds like a gun shot. And it is. No, not a drive-by shooting by students with automatic weapons. The noise we hear is the sound of a miniature cannon fired as the American flag is raised in front of the school. The tough guys at this school are symbolized by a close-up camera shot of some male students wearing heavy boots. Scary, huh?
At a planetarium where one class goes, including Dean and Wood, we hear a lecturer telling us about “the blackness of space from which we began” and how “man, existing alone, seems of little consequence.” Evolutionary nonsense has been taught in our public schools for decades.
As a new student, Dean is hassled. A punk named “Buzz” sticks a switchblade knife in a front tire of Dean’s 1951 customized Mercury. Dean and “Buzz” subsequently fight, with switchblade knives, with “Buzz” telling him that the rules are: “no sticking, just a little jabbing.” Back then there were, evidently, rules, even for knife-fighting. Deans wins, flipping “Buzz’s” knife out of his hand.
Humiliated, “Buzz” challenges Dean to a “chickie run” in which the two of them, driving stolen cars, race towards a high cliff, with the waves crashing on rocks far below. The first one who jumps out of his car is a “chicken.” Before this run, Dean is shown, at home, drinking —- milk! Yes, milk! White milk.
At Dean’s house, we see his “mushy” Dad, wearing an apron, taking a meal to his sick Mom. Prior to the “chickie run,” looking over the cliff together, “Buzz” tells Dean: “You know, I like you.” Dean asks: Then why do we do this? “Buzz” says: “You gotta do something, don’t you?” When the “chickie run” happens, the sleeve of “Buzz’s” black leather jacket catches on his door handle. He can’t get out. He goes over the cliff to his death. So, inadvertently, to be sure, “Buzz” isn’t the “chicken.” But, Dean is because he jumps out before his car goes off the cliff.
Dean and Natalie Wood, “Buzz’s” former girlfriend, are drawn to one another. She asks Sal Mineo, his best friend: What is Dean like? Mineo: “He doesn’t say much, but when he does, he means it. He’s sincere.” To which Wood replies: “Well, that’s the main thing.” True. This nerd is sincerely stupid.
Dean tells his Dad that the “chickie run” was a matter of “honor” because, you know, he was called “chicken.” Dean confesses to his Dad —- as if he didn’t already know —- that he (Dean) is screwed up, he knows he can’t continue to go around pretending he’s tough. And he (Dean) wants, just once, to do “something right.” So, he wants to tell the cops of his involvement in the “chicken run.” His parents discourage this.
The late “Buzz’s” friends hang a live chicken from the front door frame of Deans’s house and ring the doorbell. His parents open the door and see the chicken. Pretty traumatic, no?
Dean and Natalie Wood go to an old deserted mansion to goof around. They cuddle, tastefully. Wood wonders what kind of a person he thinks a girl would want? Dean says “a man.” Well, yes, says Wood, but a man “gentle and sweet,” like himself. They smooch, slowly, gently. Mineo shows up with a pistol. He shoots one of the late “Buzz’s” punk buddies who also show up at this mansion.
Several cop cars show up at the mansion. Dean goes out front and tries to restrain the cops, telling them to back off, trying to prevent Mineo from getting shot by the police. Mineo runs out the front of the mansion, gun-in-hand, gets past Dean and is shot to death by the cops. Immediately after Mineo is plugged, Dean yells to the cops, and shows them, that he had the bullets from Mineo’s gun in his own (Dean’s) hands. The End.
— J.L.
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