The James Dean Story

That first part tracking Dean's growing-up years in small town Indiana is almost poetically rendered. Dean appears an average kid participating in normal school activities, with little hint of the near-tortured soul of later life. The docu itself amounts to a succession of photographs centering on Dean, and are woven together by a very listenable narrator (Gabel), along with a few scattered interviews of family and friends. Generally those contents follow Dean's life in rough chronological order from Indiana to New York to Hollywood and finally to a lonely California road. All in all, the main point appears an effort at penetrating the nature of Dean's tortured soul, its where's and why's. How successfuly the effort does is up to the viewer to decide.

Several points about the account are worth noting. First, there's very little about the actor's career in movie's or TV. So don't expect to see out-takes from either. The narrative's concern is much more with Dean the person than with Dean the celebrity. So don't expect to see much of star-studded Hollywood. Secondly, there's little on the young man's romantic life, except for an anguished clip from an emotional Arlene Sax. Just what the extent of their involvement is left unrevealed, while there's no clippage from actress Pier Angeli with whom he's usually identified. Lastly, there's next to nothing on how Dean supported himself during those struggling apprentice years, a seemingly important element in his life story that also remains largely untouched.

Perhaps these neglected points have something to do with the year the docu was produced, namely 1957. At that point, Hollywood was still trying to cleanse its public image from the taint of nefarious doings claimed by the McCarthy, HUAC hearings of the early 50's. At the same time, about the only thing worse than being gay was being a communist. Thus rumors of Dean's being at least bi-sexual if not simply gay would have sullied his growing iconic image during that highly conservative period. Now, I'm not claiming this as factual reason for the general omissions, but it is a possibility given the nature of the era.

However you take that, there's plenty in the footage to interest Dean fans both old (like me) and new. Then too, a thanks to whoever rescued the docu from what's an apprently self-imposed exile, and also to Amazon for making the footage public. So, if you can, catch up with a cultural icon that somehow managed to escape that lonely California road.