EAST OF EDEN (1955)
Label: WBHE
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: PG
Duration: 117 Minutes 43 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p UHD Widescreen (2.55:1)
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey, Burl Ives, Richard Davalos, Jo Van Fleet
Elia Kazan's (On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire) East of Eden (1950), based on John Steinbeck's acclaimed novel, is not only a terrific film it's the film that brought future-icon James Dean to the film-going public for the first-time. Though he only made two more films (Rebel Without A Cause, Giant) during his too-brief career, cut short by a car wreck in 1955, these trio of magnetic performances cemented his place in not only film history but in pop culture.
East of Eden is a tense Cain and Abel story set in Salinas Valley around the start of WWI, with Dean paying wayward Cal Trask, the troubled son of entrepreneur Adam Trask (Raymond Massey, Arsenic and Old Lace) whose approval he seeks, while living in the shadow of his favored brother Aron (Richard Davalos, Cool Hand Luke). Cal's brother seems genuinely fond of him despite his dark reputation, he treats him well, but the relationship is strained by Cal's jealousy of his favored brother, and the fact that Aron's girlfriend Abra (Julie Harris, The Haunting), who initially fears him, starts to develop feelings for Cal, and he for her.
Cal's frustration and desire to be loved by his father leads him to him tracking down his estranged mother (Jo Van Fleet, Cool Hand Luke), who his father has told the brothers for years had died when they were young. It turns out she's a shrewd ice-queen of a madame who runs a lucrative brothel in the nearby fishing town of Monterey. Despite her clearly evident preference that he leave her alone he does eventually meets with her, but keeps his knowledge of her a secret from both his father and Aron, at least until later when attempting to impress his father with money he is delivered a crushing blow to his ego, at which point he venomously unleashed the family secret with tragic consequences.
This family melodrama is steeped in atmosphere and tension, the performances across the board are excellent, with Dean stealing the show as the brooding young man, he smolders the screen with his intensity unafraid to unleash himself, to bare his raw emotion, and we believe in him throughout, through all his wrong-headed, well-intentioned journey of self-discovery. Harris is also terrific as the conflicted love interest, the way she is drawn towards Cal while dating Aron, eventually jumping ship altogether to be by Cal's side, and yet somehow does not come across as a villainous woman tearing two brothers apart, which is quite a feat and a testament to her sensitive portrayal. The finals scenes are electrifying, after learning the truth about his mother Aron boards a train to join the war effort, betrayed by his gal and feeling as though he's been played a fool, he gets drunk and smashes his head through the train car window as his father screams for him to please come back, just before his father suffers a paralyzing stroke. The film ends with Cal, with the help of Abra, beginning to mend their broken father-son relationship while his other son goes off to war, more than likely to end in tragedy.
This is easily my favorite of the trio of James Dean films, though it's been a good long while since I last saw Giant, so I should probably revisit that one as it's also on 4K UHD these days. To think it was Dean's feature-film debut is pretty shocking in a way, it's raw and unfiltered, brimming with tension and melodrama, and he strikes quite a chord, and the performance holds up quite nicely. The film is gorgeously shot in CinemaScope by Ted McCord (The Hanging Tree, The Damned Don't Cry) and he makes great use of the widescreen format, using skewed angle to accentuate tension, as does the terrific score by Leonard Rosenman (Rebel Without a Cause, Pork Chop Hill).
Audio/Video: East of Eden (1950) gets a superlative 4K UHD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, in 2160p UHD with HDR10 color-grading, frame din the original 2.55:1 widescreen. This was a first-time watch for me so I cannot compare it to the previous Blu-ray but this look magnificent all the way around. Beginning at the source their are no imperfections, grain is well-managed and finite, detail and clarity are excellent, and the colors are pleasing throughout. Shot in CinemaScope the film is well-crafted with moody skewed angles that really set a tone, the primaries have a nice blush to them, the greens of fields, the blue sky, a field of green peppered with goldenrod truly wows, and we get deep inky blacks with plenty of shadow detail in the darker scenes. WBHE up the ante here with not just uncompressed audio but a full-fledged Atmos track that gives the Leonard Rosenman score some excellent depth and a separation, and dialogue sounds great.
Extras are less impressive, we only get the archival Audio Commentary with Richard Shickel the previous Blu-ray had a quite a few, what we do not get here is the hour-long Forever James Dean documentary, the 20-min East of Eden: Art in Search of Life doc, 6-min of Screen Tests, 23-min Wardrobe Tests, 19-min of Deleted Scenes and the 14-min March 9th, 1955 NYC Premiere footage with appearances by novelist Steinbeck, director Kazan, and others, plus the original Theatrical Trailer. C'mon WB, not even including a trailer for the film is pretty insulting, plus were missing out on over 2-hours worth of bonus content.
I've said this before on my recent Rio Bravo 4K review, but I'll restate it here - Warner Bros. have been pretty scattershot about including archival extras with these 4K releases; sometime they will recycle the previous Blu-rays with dated transfers and the archival extras as they did with Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon and I am fine with the dated transfer as long as we get the extras, and sometime they will include a new remastered Blu-ray with archival extras (A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation) which is even better, but sometimes like in the case with National Lampoon's Vacation, and Rio Bravo, there's no Blu-ray at all and no archival extras aside from the audio commentaries. C'mon WBHE - give us the friggin' extras, this is probably a cost-cutting measure, but it sucks balls, I want my damn extras! I also want to free up some shelf space and don't appreciate having to hold onto past releases just to have the extras, or in this case having to purchase the Blu-ray to get the dang extras - these 4K Ultra HD release should be a celebration of not just the films themselves with definitive A/V restorations, but the full compliment of archival extras that serve to deepen our love for these flicks, to not include them is a disservice to the films, those who worked on the extras, and to us as movie fans who purchase physical media.
The single-disc release arrives in standard black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, it does not feature any original movie poster artwork, but instead an image of Dean and Harris in an embrace, which looks fine. It's a damn
sight better than some of the other revisionist new artwork we've seen accompanying classic films lately - have you see that godawful Rosemary's Baby 4K artwork from Paramount? Yikes! Inside there's a redemption code for a digital copy of the film, which I have noy yet been able to redeem but I would not hold my breath expecting there to be any archival extras. As with Rio Bravo my review copy did not come with a slipcover, and I am not sure if retail copies will include one as well, but these would be the first WBHE 4K UHDs not to initially ship with a slip if not.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Richard Schickel
- Audio Commentary by Richard Schickel
