Showing posts with label Rebel Without a Cause. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebel Without a Cause. Show all posts

Sunday, April 24, 2016

JAMES DEAN WAS IN AN INFOMERCIAL BUT NOT A PSA


Let's set the record straight on a misconception or mistake in labeling. You've seen it on YouTube or on video compilations for years. It still circulates on social media still, but has been misidentified. I first saw it on a video compilation of old TV commercials that I bought in high school. It was put out by a company called Goodtimes. It also appeared on the Floor Sweepings videos sold through Filmfax magazines. It also turned up on the old USA network Night Flight program.

It became popular because it is the definition of irony caught on film. Gig Young talks to James Dean, on the set of the film, Giant, on the subject of safe driving in your teen years. The only thing that could make this more ironic would be if Gig Young told kids not to drink alcohol. People have marveled at the spooky irony of James Dean telling teenagers to drive safe, because they might have a wreck with him, in a 50s PSA for TV. However, it is not a PSA, but a loose segment from a very staged infomercial.

I discovered this when I bought a special edition DVD of Rebel Without a Cause. One of the extra features on the DVD was an ABC TV show called Warner Brothers Presents. It was a wheel program that consisted of the popular Western, Cheyenne, and TV shows based on the movies Casablanca and King's Row. At the end of the show was a 15 minute infomercial for the latest Warner Brothers movie called Behind the Camera, hosted by Gig Young.

One episode promoted Rebel Without a Cause. The first segment featured Gig Young schmoozing with Natalie Wood about "growing up on a movie set." The second segment, Gig talks to Jim Backus about being a comedian playing a serious role. Backus makes some bad jokes, but never gets too deep into Gig's question. The third segment is what we have always been told is a safe driving PSA. Gig Young ask James Dean about his hobby of automobile racing. Gig then asked Dean to advise young people on the dangers of drag racing in traffic.

What is odd watching this with the other segments, not out of context, is that Gig Young sort of veers off (no pun intended) the subject of movie making into safe driving.

Many websites have different versions of the history of this clip, which has lead to the confusion over it. There is also some debate on whether it ever aired or not.

Now we know what it is we are watching. Of course, this still doesn't make this any more eerie watching James Dean talk about the possibility of being involved in a car accident.

     

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

MY TWO FAVORITE HIGH SCHOOL MOVIES

It is back to school time, so I decided to look at my two favorite movies about high school: 1955's Rebel Without a Cause and 1986's Ferris Bueller's Day Off. There are basically two kinds of high school movies: 50s "juvenile delinquent" films and 80s teen comedies. When it comes to the later, John Hughes (Director and writer of FBDO) was to teen comedies, what John Ford was to the Western.

These two movies are the best examples of both of those kinds of high school movies and polar opposites of each other. One is a heavy drama, inspired by a non-fiction book by a psychologist and the other is a comical farce about a kid, with a habit of skipping school, being pursued by an obsessive principal.

These movies have staying power because they have managed to stay current through the next generations.
Rebel was far ahead of its time. It deals with problems, such as the "new kids in school," underage drinking, bullying, gangs, sexual orientation, animal abuse, abusive parents, abusive relationships, reckless driving, gun violence, cranky adults, school brown-nosers and over-zealous cops. Ferris Bueller is a brighter world, but every generation encounters boring teachers, school rules, gossip, loquacious stoners, mean principals, jealous siblings, snooty waiters and borrowing a parents car without permission.

One thing that makes these films transcend generations and universal is the fact that they are average kids. Not popular preppies or jocks, just kids. Not a caricature of what an adult believes a kid is like or something to be ridiculed, but the kids in both films are humans with dignity.

However, it is the overall theme that connects these two movies and have made them popular after the number of years since first released (Rebel will soon be 60 years old, Ferris is over 20 years old) is the theme of freedom, something all teenagers long for. The freedom to be yourself and escape a structured environment. Ferris, Cameron and Sloane skip school and go into the city, whereas Jim, Judy and Plato take refuge in an abandoned mansion.  

What I identify with in these films is Jim Stark's need to find friends and a sense of comfort away from bullies and his bickering parents. I identify with Ferris on an intellectual level. He seems to be smarter than the adults in his world and I have always thought I was smarter than most of the people I encounter. His philosophy on life is similar to mine.
 
It is unusual that two movies, made 30 years apart, could become iconic rites of passage for young people.

"If I had one day when I didn't have to be all confused and I didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace. You know?" Jim Stark - Rebel Without a Cause.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Ferris Bueller - Ferris Bueller's Day Off.


 
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