RebelWithoutACause Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Growing up in Los Angeles as an admittedly shallow, callow youth in the 70s, I always wanted a stylish hot rod so I could attract the girls who liked guys in fast cars. Alas, I had to be content with puttering around in very practical, somewhat beat-up used cars (1964 Chevy Corvair, graduating to a 1965 Ford Falcon), but dreams die hard. Even though I'm still driving a very practical, somewhat beat-up used car, I still yearn for a sizzling hot motor vehicle and an attractive lady passenger urging me to go faster, faster.

These thoughts are prompted by the imminent release of the hot rod-loving Fast & Furious, due in theaters tomorrow, which features the return of the gorgeous Jordana Brewster and the equally lovely Michelle Rodriguez, two talented ladies who have a definite need for speed. (Oh, yeah, Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are back, too, and so is director Justin Lin.) In their honor, we present our seven favorite, fabulous hot rod girls.

1. Tracie Thoms, Death Proof

Tracie Thoms packs an unbeatable combination of brains, beauty, and bravado as Kim, a stunt woman in Quentin Tarantino's twisted ode to 70s car chase movies and 80s slasher flicks. Kim is rowdy and rambunctious with her girlfriends, but her hot rod heart starts beating fast when she revs up the engine of a borrowed 1970 Dodge Challenger, with Zoe Bell precariously perched on the hood. Smashing!

It used to be that movie collectibles only came to anxious audiences in special memorabilia stores. However, with the internet came eBay, and with eBay came a warehouse of collectible goodies at our fingertips. It's hard not to fall for the low-price lure that evilly reels you in and gives you a false sense of hope before ripping the dream away as people sail in with more buying power. But that's small potatoes. eBay is gearing up for a sale where I'm sure a thousand bucks will seem dirt cheap. The collection of items, which is valued at $3.1 million, contains some of the most memorable props and objects you can possibly think of. It looks more like a list of items from Planet Hollywood than a public auction.

Some of the stuff is a little newer. If you're a Star Wars fan, what would interest you? Perhaps the heads of R2D2 and C3P0? Not only are they two of the most recognizable pieces you could grab, but C3P0 would make one hell of a bookend. If you're looking for some older film pieces, you could put a bid in for the Wizard of Oz Cowardly Lion costume, or my personal favorite, James Dean's switchblade from Rebel Without a Cause. For something off-screen but just as noteworthy -- there will be the chance to bid on Elvis' wedding ring from his marriage to Priscilla.

The event will run on eBay from December 14 to 15, so you might want to start saving your pennies, or better yet, your gold pieces.

Over at the Guardian yesterday, they reported that "lost" footage of iconic actor Marlon Brando screen testing for Rebel Without a Cause way back in 1947 has been found, and it's got lots of folks excited to imagine what Brando would have brough to the lead role of the classic film. The five-minute screen test, included as an extra on the DVD release of Brando's A Streetcar Named Desire, shows a young Brando "railing against his parents" and "finding a gun and lighting out for a new life with his girl. Today The Guardian's Xan Brooks speculated on what Rebel Without a Cause might have been like with Brando in the role that made James Dean famous eight years later. Davis opines that a Rebel with Brando in the role of Jim Stark would have been inferior to the film made by Nicholas Ray with Dean in the lead role - an assertion I happen to agree with.

What neither Guardian piece addresses, though, is that the screen test Brando made in 1947 had practically nothing to do with the Rebel Without A Cause we're all familiar with. After I read the article in the Guardian, I emailed Stewart Stern (pictured), who wrote the screenplay for Rebel Without a Cause.  I interviewed Stern extensively last year, and we talked a lot about Dean, Rebel, and what Brando thought of Dean. I knew Stern didn't write his screenplay in 1947, so I asked him if he knew anything about this Brando screen test. As he recalls it after all these years, Stern believes it went this way:

 

This is Part Two of a two-part interview with screenwriter Stewart Stern, who wrote the screenplays for Rebel Without a Cause, Sybil, and many other films. Part One of the interview covered Stern's career.

CINEMATICAL: Stewart, let's start by talking about your childhood, which profoundly impacted your writing. You and your mother never had a good relationship.

STERN: She did her best - she and my father never intended to have a baby so soon. They went on their honeymoon - boom! - she was pregnant; they never even had a chance to know each other, really, before they became parents. My mother was creative, she wanted to be an actress. She didn't really want to have a baby then. Her own mother, my Grandma Kaufman, was 47 when my mother was born; she had already used up most of her affection on the nine children she had before my mother. So my mother never learned how to be...how to be that way.

But when I made clay figures, my mother would run them off to a ceramic studio and get them glazed and fired. (Stern goes to his desk and pulls a small, green clay figure out of a drawer) This is an alligator I made as a kid...just a little clay figure, and look - she had it glazed and fired. (He hands me the figure to examine)

CINEMATICAL: It says on the bottom you were nine years old. This is remarkably well done for a nine-year-old.

STERN: I was always artistic. Marjorie (his younger sister) wasn't. She wanted to be, she tried so hard, but she just wasn't.

Stewart Stern had a enviable career in Hollywood for over a quarter century. He was the nephew of Paramount founder Adolph Zukor, and spent much of his childhood at Zukor's Mountain View Farm near Nyack, NY, where he played with his cousin, Arthur Loew Jr, who would later help Stern start his career in Hollywood. But Stern's childhood was far from idyllic; he had a difficult relationship with his emotionally distant parents, which would later shape much of his writing.

Stern wrote the screenplays for Rebel Without a Cause, Sybil, The Ugly American, and Rachel, Rachel, among others. He had unprecedented access as a screenwriter to the sets of his films, and counted some of Hollywood's biggest names - Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Natalie Wood, James Dean - among his friends.

Going Through Splat: The Life and Work of Stewart Stern is a revealing portrait of a Hollywood legend with the soul and sensitivity of a poet. For over a quarter-century, Stern had one of the most prolific writing careers in Hollywood, penning films including Rebel Without a Cause, Rachel, Rachel, and Sybil; in 1983, at the pinnacle of his career, he abruptly left Hollywood for good and moved to the Pacific Northwest.

Stern’s longtime friend, Paul Newman, says of Stern’s retreat from Hollywood, "Stewart just ran out of wonderful determination…he just ran out of stink."

Through intimate conversations with Stern about his troubled childhood and his prolific career, and interviews with a parade of Stern’s celebrity friends, including Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sally Field, Dennis Hopper, Delbert Mann, and George Englund, director Jon Ward unfolds the story of a lonely, sensitive boy who grew up surrounded by wealth and fame, but felt more loved and nurtured by farm animals than by his own parents. Stern, who survived the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two, later became a screenwriter - without the help of his uncle, Adolph Zukor, the founder of Paramount - and worked with some of the most famous names in Hollywood.

 

This much we know: "The James Dean Death Car" – the 1955 550 Porsche Spyder bought by Dean's buddy (and future Batmobile creator) George Barris – disappeared without a trace about three years after the fatal 1955 crash that claimed the iconic 24-year-old Rebel Without A Cause star's life. The mangled body of the car was on a "They Never Made It Home From The Prom" kind of tour when it disappeared (its "cursed" parts were brokered). What we don't know is where it has been since, who took it, why and now, why an Illinois car museum is offering an unheard-of $1,000,000 reward for the legendary car's twisted skeleton. The Volo Car Museum is hoping to have it to show for the 50th anniversary of Dean's death on September 30, 2005.

I don't mean to sound like some hippie whiner, but dude - WTF? At least Volo could scale back the reward and pledge a matching donation to hurricane relief or something. And why the hell do we celebrate the anniversaries of famous deaths, anyway? I mean, it would be one thing if James Dean had subjugated Europe during World War II, but he was no Wicked Witch. He was born on February 8, 1931 - that's the day we should be celebrating. Yes, marking death is a way we affirm our own life, but enough with the gallows profiteering already. This kind of fetishistic scrapbooking is just icky, post-mortem star-schtupping.

East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Giant. That's what you call a Complete James Dean Collection, I guess. In each film, he performs a variation on the same outsider identity—perpetually tormented, John Donne style, by an internal good v. evil battle. Red jacket, white t-shirt, blue jeans—I watched Rebel for the first time seven years ago (I know, I know. What took me so long?) and I swear that's all I wanted to wear. You too? Awesome.