Posted on 05/09/2013 9:13:07 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
Wait’ll they learn that Sal Mineo was gay and that James Dean dated Vampira.
Toronto, Canada was then hard scrabble for new immigrants as myself. Hardly anyone seemed to own a car, but all talked about getting one. A Hungarian refugee had remarked to me, after discussing Canada and the weather this:
California! That is our dream.
There was this youth with a huge boat of an automobile (his Dads). He had doting parents. In the wonderful climate of California he basked. He had a smashing girl friend to boot (portrayed by Natalie Wood). I could not figure it out. Only in later years did I realise that the harder things are to get, plus the struggles some have to make to get them, seem to make many people value just what they have.
Thus the film did indicate to some extent about "rebellion;" maybe human beings are not geared to be absolutely satisfied. A bit of a ramble here, but I must mention I had read Steinbeck's East of Eden and then re read it. Dean's portrayal was genius. The novel had more authenticity to it than "Rebel Without a Cause". I will always remember the portrayal of the sweet girl next door. It was Abra, acted by Julie Harris, who is still with us, though sadly not so well, I believe. She was born in 1924.
James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are “icons” because they never age. They died young and left behind a strong body of work.
Hitchcock kept making movies past his prime and had a lengthy career before he truly got up to speed.
They were also “icon”ed with t-shirts and pop art paintings to truly become “iconic”.
Che is an icon and most of the public doesn’t know crap about him. Icon != worth or valued just as chart success != quality or “best of the era”. iconic
Giant was released after his death ... not Rebel Without A Cause. I'm old enough to remember the movie not long after it was released. My recollection is that I saw the movie before he was killed in a automobile accident.
I didn’t think Dean was a bad actor, just that the “tearing me apart” scene looks overacted (sorry). I DID enjoy him in the rest of the film though. He was very cool.
Yes, Julie Harris was a genius of an actress. Great movie. I can understand an immigrant wanting California! It was the golden land after the war!
Sal Mineo was indeed gay and working on a gay play when he was brutally murdered in his drive way in L.A. I believe they never found the killer. Vampira, at least, was a woman.
Too many of the young actors in Rebel met untimely ends. Nick Adams is another one.
I wonder what their reaction would be to seeing Elvis and Mary Ann Mobley in “Harem Scarem.”
Two longtime favorites of mine are in the cast of RWAC... Rochelle Hudson and Ann Doran.
What do you think of country music? Is it a complete travesty to ya? (duck’n & runn’n)
You actually draw a distinction between Lost Hills and Cholame
in a world this large? Hmmm. If you find there is that much
of a geographic difference then for the sake of accuracy I will
revise my statement to reflect that the intersection of CA 41
and CA 46 near Cholame is among the most desolate areas
you can find anywhere in the Lower 48....... Fixed?
Now, why would you run away? I happen to very much like country music - but only the old stuff. Any kind of cross-over music drives me wild. When my husband and I drove across N.C. and Tennessee a few years ago, we could not find a station that played authentic country music or bluegrass. When I directed a lovely play that takes place in the South, I used country music between scenes.
PS this was a collaboration between me and Ronnie Houser. I wrote the words, and Ronnie Houser wrote the music and created and produced the performance. The truck picture on the You Tube, I created from a licensed image, split it in two, and used it as the cover art for a privately released album of the same name as the song.
I am a fan, and my judgement is better than the leftists that populate the Hollywood world and it’s world of critics and scholars, and professors.
If you want to worship at the altar of the short lived actor and a kind of weird movie, feel free, but I consider the film one for beer and laughs.
Country used to be very rough and earthy. as did the people listening to it before the 1970s and pot reached the country world. "Knoxville Girl" is kind of a shocker, it was a hit from a very popular duet, the Louvin Brothers.
Here is the song that reached number 19 on the Billboard Country Singles chart in 1959, "Knoxville Girl"
""It’s perhaps their most powerful rendering of traditional folk music’s bleak vision of a dark and forlorn land, where love is absent and death is the only certainty. It’s the centerpiece of what is arguably the Louvins' finest album."The album is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die."
There are some more examples here. Violence is a part of our folk music history
Thanks for the link. I will listen. I love low brow as much as the middle and high end. As long as it’s good.
Hey, I liked it! Patriotic country music is always good. You’re a song writer - that’s great.
My big concern about country music is that it has gotten very homogenous, if that’s the right word. Bland might be a better word. The kind of bumper music Sean Hannity plays. I always listened to Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, early Dolly Parton as a kid and young woman. Then I moved further back in time and became interested in bluegrass.
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