Starlight Movies in the Garden: Rebel Without a Cause

Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause exemplifies ’50s-era cinema’s fascination with the juvenile delinquent. First crossing paths in a police station, disillusioned teens Jim (James Dean), Judy (Natalie Wood), and “Plato” (Sal Mineo) eventually form a “fantasy family” in an abandoned mansion after a game of chicken takes the life of a classmate named Buzz. Dean — who died tragically in car accident at the age of 24 one month before the film’s release — poured himself into the part and directed his co-stars after Ray gave the young method actor free rein to interpret the script and improvise as he saw fit. The iconic 1955 melodrama is one of two films Slab Cinema will screen at the Botanical Garden as part of the free Starlight Movies in the Garden series.