East Of Eden (1955)

Did anyone see East of Eden, starring James Dean? According to Wikipedia, it was based off the second half of the book (did you read it?) of the same name?

I actually read the book before I saw the movie, I still haven't seen the entire movie, I've seen parts of it, and it took a long time yes to get to the part that you see in the movie. It was like 600 pages and I got it from the library, read it and had to renew it, renew it, until it was maxed out, take it back and then read it again at a later time to finish it. Between the two, I think the movie's better even though I haven't seen all of it...the book is a lot more depressing in explaining about Cal and Aron's father and their mother who (spoilers) killed her parents and burned down the house to go and create a new identity for herself working at and eventually taking over a whorehouse, there wasn't any of that in the movie, instead she was just running a bar.

James Dean in this movie was very...I don't know what the word is, you can't help but like him, no matter what happens, you can't help but feel he's right...of course, I always felt that my brother and I, even though we're not twins, were a lot like Cal and Aron in that I was always the one doing things and got in trouble, he never did anything wrong, so I could relate a lot to Cal I thought. And maybe that's part of the charm, I see him and I can see myself in the same situation, in the beginning when he says 'Hey Aron, why don't you ask me where I've been?' and Aron says 'would you tell me?' and Cal says 'nope', that's, it sounds like something I would do.

And near the end, when he's in with his father, and that stupid nurse comes in and he just yells at her GEEEET OUUUUT! That was just .


And Julie Harris, I liked her in this, everybody complains she's too old for the part, I liked her in it...and it's funny because a few years back I did a comparison because James Dean was in Rebel without a cause, first real movie that looked at juvenile delinquency, but Julie Harris 3 years earlier was in the Member of the Wedding, as a severely misunderstood and ignored 12 year old going through the pains of adolesence and nobody got her, nobody understood her, kind of like in Rebel I thought, and it's amazing because nobody talks about that. Rebel gets all the attention because it was groundbreaking but Julie Harris did the first I think realistic portrayal of how painful it is to be at that awkward age and not belong and not have any parents to confide in and the adults just patronize and make fun of you. So you have the screen's first two stars in that field of misunderstood asolesence together, I thought it was perfect.

I also loved Julie as Abra when she explained she threw a ring worth $16,000 that her father gave her, into the river, and he was made at her for a long time, but SHE finally forgave HIM for it. I liked that, you don't see that anymore, but I loved that part.