James Dean’s Best--a Rebel Gets His Due

“The James Dean 35th Anniversary Collection” (Warner Home Video, five laser video discs, extended play, digitally processed stereo sound): “East of Eden” (color, 118 minutes, wide-screen “letterbox” format); “Rebel Without a Cause” (color, 111 minutes, wide-screen “letterbox” format); “Giant” (color, 202 minutes) and “Forever James Dean” (color and black-and-white, 69 minutes). Also includes theatrical trailers for “East of Eden,” “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Giant,” $120.

This is the kind of laser video disc package that sends collectors running out, charge cards in hand, and, like the special Criterion editions, offers the best of reasons for joining the laser video disc generation. It is a beautifully packaged bonanza for any James Dean fan, in an LP-size box, with a handsome illustrated booklet.

For anyone not familiar with the actor who became a cult figure after his death at age 24, this laser-disc collection, released this week by Warner Home Video, offers as complete a look as possible at his magnetism--then and now.

Best to begin not at the beginning, but with Sides 9 and 10, the film trailers and the 1988 Ara Chekmayan documentary “Forever James Dean,” which includes interviews with Dean’s Indiana high school drama-speech teacher, several actors, producers and others who worked with him and wonderful stills and snippets from early TV work. Especially poignant is the recounting of his mother’s death from cancer when he was 9; he accompanied her body back to Indiana from California on a train, checking at every stop to be sure it was still there.

The documentary footage from Dean’s three films--obviously not gleaned from the same pristine prints that the films were--contrasts sharply with the actual films in the set, revealing the advantages of laser discs struck from top-quality prints or negatives: crispness and clarity in both sound and picture.

Warner released a similar videotape package in September to commemorate the anniversary of Dean’s death--Sept. 30, 1955--but the laser compendium took more work than the cassette versions. The sound has been polished digitally, which along with the sharper laser picture, offers as close an approximation of the first-generation prints yet available.

The company searched for surviving stereo prints of “‘Rebel” and “Eden,” turning up three for “Rebel,” including audio tracks long thought lost of the original scoring sessions. Chace Productions, a restoration house, reconstructed the four-track stereo magnetic prints for both “Rebel” and “Eden,” for which there was only one print available, and digitally cleaned up the sound tracks. The result is all newly matrixed sound for Dolby Surround sound, wonderfully rendered on disc.

This commemorative laser set offers indexed chapter stops for each disc, with the entire package closed-captioned for the hearing impaired. “East of Eden” and “Rebel Without a Cause” are preserved in their original theatrical early Cinemascope presentations, with the original wide-screen aspect ratio, making the banding wider than most.

“Giant,” which was not a wide-screen film, is presented in its actual aspect ratio. The original “Giant” magnetic sound track was also cleaned up and clarified, with areas of dynamic range restored.

Dean won the role of Cal over Paul Newman in director Elia Kazan’s and screenwriter Paul Osborn’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.” Of the three films he made in 16 months, he lived to see only the wild reception that this loose adaptation of the Cain and Able story drew. And, according to “Forever James Dean,” he would drive to Hollywood Boulevard to see the lines for the film, and shake his head in disbelief.

Dean received an Academy Award nomination for “Eden,” as did Kazan and Osborn; Jo Van Fleet, who portrayed his wayward mother, won a best supporting Oscar. The emotionally powerful work also features Julie Harris, Burl Ives and Raymond Massey. Twenty-two chapter stops mark each important scene, including the classic Dean-Massey (“Talk to me, Father!”) confrontation.

Many consider “Rebel Without a Cause” to be Dean’s most impressive work on film, showing his potential to be the most important actor of his generation. “Rebel’s” portrait of alienated youth may seem dated in 1990, but it still retains much of its power. Besides Dean, other key players in the young cast assembled by director-screenwriter Nicholas Ray died untimely deaths--Sal Mineo, Nick Adams, Natalie Wood. Oscar nominations went to Mineo, Wood and Ray (for his screenplay).

“Giant,” at three hours, 22 minutes, takes up four sides (two discs) in its attempt to capture Edna Ferber’s sprawling novel about two generations of Texans. Director George Stevens won an Academy Award for his direction. The film not only offers Dean’s final Oscar-nominated performance as the outsider Jet Rink, but also what arguably are Rock Hudson’s and Elizabeth Taylor’s best performances on film.

Shortly after finishing “Giant,” Dean and his mechanic took his new Porsche Spyder to Salinas for an auto race. At the intersection of Highways 466 and 41 near Cholame, Calif., the silver aluminum-frame car collided with another. Dean died almost instantly. His legend hasn’t; this set shows why.