“You're Tearing Me Apart!”
There are certain films that come along, seemingly out of nowhere, and strike a chord with audiences that continue to reverberate for decades later.
And there are certain films that feature then-unknown actors who become not just household names, but true film legends.
It is exceedingly rare when one film accomplishes both. Such a film is 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause which catapulted James Dean to worldwide fame (a fame that was sadly highlighted with his death in a car crash later that year).
For those who are unfamiliar with the film, it is a relatively simple premise: a rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.
But the film is far more than that. In one of moviedom’s most influential roles, James Dean is Jim, the new kid in town whose loneliness, frustration and anger mirrored those of postwar teens—and reverberates over 60 years later.
If you’ve only ever seen Rebel Without a Cause on the small screen, or never even seen it all, you owe it to yourself to head over to either East Ridge 18 or Hamilton Place this Sunday for a very special screening, complete with cinematic insight from the film historians at Turner Classic Movies.
The film screens at both 2 and 7 p.m. on Sunday, and then again on Wednesday.