Overview
After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin.
James Dean crashed a racing car in 1955 at the age of 24. Not having lived very long before the premiere of this film. On September 30, at 5:45 p.m., James and his group of boys were driving west on U.S. Highway 466 (now SR 46) near Cholame, California. A 1950 Ford Tudor driven by Donald Turnapsid, a 23-year-old student at California Polytechnic State University, was heading east. Turnpike turned left onto Highway 41 and headed north toward Fresno, ahead of an oncoming Porsche. Dean, driving over 100 mph, failed to brake in time and crashed into the passenger side of the Ford. As a result, Dean's car flew to the side of the road. Dean's passenger, Vyuterich, was thrown out of the Porsche. And Dean was trapped in the car and suffered numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnpsid had only minor injuries. The incident was witnessed by several passers-by who stopped to help. Dean's biographer, George Perry, wrote that a woman with nursing experience helped Dean and found a weak pulse. Nevertheless, he also wrote that "death appeared to have occurred instantly." Dean was pronounced dead on arrival, shortly after being taken by ambulance to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m. The investigation revealed that Dean was entirely to blame for the accident. If you believe in mysticism, then the story from the film seemed to suggest…
Sal Mineo was killed on the night of February 12, 1976. He was returning home from a performance rehearsal at 22:00. Parking the car in the parking lot near his home in West Hollywood. A random robber (Lionel Ray Williams) attacked and stabbed him twice. One of them was right in the heart, which led to severe internal bleeding. Mineo was found lying in the parking lot and bleeding to death by his neighbor Raymond Evans, who heard his cries for help, but Mineo could only walk a few steps, after which he immediately fell. He was pronounced dead on the spot at the age of 37. Ray Williams, a young pizza delivery man with a long criminal past, was convicted and sentenced in March 1979 to 51 years in prison for the murder of Mineo, as well as for committing ten robberies. Williams claimed he had no idea who Mineo was. Correctional officers later stated that they had heard Williams confess to stabbing. Williams' wife later confirmed that on the night Mineo died, he returned home with blood on his shirt. After several years of speculation about the motives of the murder, the police investigation concluded that it was a random robbery. While in prison, Williams continues to deny his guilt in the murder.
Natalie Wood died under mysterious circumstances in 1981 at the age of 43. To this day, no one knows for sure if she drowned herself or if someone helped her (presumably her husband Robert Wagner). On November 29, she went on a weekend cruise to Santa Catalina Island on her husband Robert Wagner's motor yacht. Many circumstances remain unknown. For example, it was never established how she ended up in the water. On the evening of November 28, Wood was with Wagner, her co-star Christopher Walken, and Captain Dennis Davern. Authorities found her body at 8:00 a.m. on November 29, one mile (1.6 km) from the boat, next to a small inflatable canoe. Wagner said she wasn't with him when he went to bed. The autopsy report indicates that she had bruises on her body and arms and an abrasion on her left cheek, but it does not indicate how or when these injuries were sustained. Davern claimed that Wood and Wagner had an argument that evening, but Wagner denied this at the time. In his memoir, Pieces of My Heart, Wagner admitted that he had an argument with Wood before her disappearance. The autopsy revealed that Wood's blood alcohol content was 0.14 and traces of motion sickness pills and painkillers, which enhance the effects of alcohol, were found. Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi determined that the cause of her death was accidental drowning and hypothermia. According to Noguchi, Wood was drunk and may have slipped while trying to get back into the dinghy. Her sister Lana expressed doubts, saying that Wood did not know how to swim and had been "afraid" of water all her life and that she would never have left the yacht on a dinghy alone. Two witnesses who were on a nearby boat said they heard a woman calling for help at night. The case was reopened in November 2011, after Davern publicly stated that he had lied to police during the initial investigation and that Wood and Wagner had had an argument that evening. He claimed that Wood was flirting with Walken, that Wagner was jealous and furious, and that Wagner prevented Davern from turning on the floodlights and informing authorities of Wood's disappearance. Davern claimed that Wagner was responsible for her death. Wood's sister, Lana Wood, told CBS News that Davern called her more than a decade after the incident to explain what had happened, although she did not know why, because he was not her close friend. Lana claimed that Davern told her, "That it felt like Wagner pushed her away and she fell overboard. Davern panicked, and Wagner said, "Leave her there. We'll teach her a lesson." Davern said he was very scared that he was sitting there, and Wagner was drinking and drinking. And he said, "Come on, let's get her." And he said that Wagner was in such a bad mood at that moment that he fell silent and waited for them to come to her aid until everything calmed down." As for Walken... he hired a lawyer, cooperated with the investigation, and was not considered a suspect. In 2012, Los Angeles County Chief Coroner Lakshmanan Satyavagishwar amended Wood's death certificate and changed the cause of death from "accidental drowning" to "drowning and other unidentified factors." The amended document stated that it was "not established exactly" how Wood ended up in the water. On January 14, 2013, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office released a 10-page addendum to Wood's autopsy report. The addendum stated that Wood may have received some of the bruises on her body before she fell into the water, but this could not be established with certainty. Forensic medical examiner Michael Hunter suggested that Wood was particularly prone to bruising because she was taking the drug Syntroid. In 2020, Noguchi, a doctor and former intern who worked at the time of Wood's death, stated that the bruises were serious and consistent with those that appear when a person is thrown out of a boat. He claimed that Noguchi himself made these remarks. In February 2018, the police declared Wagner a suspect in this investigation. Police said they were aware that Wagner was the last person to see Wood before she disappeared. In a 2018 report, the Los Angeles Times, citing a 2013 coroner's report, reported that Wood had unexplained fresh bruises on her right forearm, left wrist, and right knee, a scratch on her neck, and a superficial scratch on her forehead. Officials said she may have been attacked before she drowned.
About the movie... I liked it! The shooting looks very modern and stylish. After watching it for a while, I stopped the movie to make sure if it was really from '55 (even though I already knew it was a 50s movie)? It's like a 90s movie made under the 50s. At first, you think that the plot of the film will go one way, but the ending abruptly turns in the other direction. A very sad end…