East of Eden

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Jordan

Sometimes I think all it took to be considered a good actor in the 50's was to mumble your lines.

Kidding! Maybe. Not really. But James Dean does go nice and crazy at the end there. It's a pity I found the start of this film so hard to get into. I don't know the John Steinbeck story but I did know the there was a vague Cain and Able connection so I was just waiting for the smackdown.

The drama in the last 20 minutes is great although I was very surprised by the ending given Steinbeck's penchant for downer finishes.

The wide screen cinematography is very nice. And you can always tell the drama is gonna crank up when the dutch angles kick in. All the scenes of two people talking, it feels like a bit of a waste of screen real estate and that is what the majority of the film is but there are a few crowd sections where you can really see the framing and blocking working beautifully.

It also has one of those great wall to wall melodramatic scores and it actually has a pretty modern sound for 1955.

I did like finally checking this one out. There's some good scenes at the end there but I didn't really care for the rest. Not the best film to watch late at night either.