1. East of Eden (1955): The story is set in 1917, during World War I, in the central California coastal towns of Monterey and Salinas. Cal (Caleb) (James Dean) and Aron (Richard Davalos) are the young adult sons of a modestly successful farmer and wartime draft board chairman named Adam Trask (Raymond Massey). Adam is a deeply religious man. Cal is moody and embittered by his belief that his father loves only Aron. The Trask family has a farm in the fertile Salinas valley. Although both Cal and Aron had been led to believe that their mother had died "and gone to heaven", the opening scene reveals that Cal knows that his mother is still alive, owning and running a successful brothel. After the father's idealistic plans for a long-haul vegetable shipping business venture end in a loss of thousands of dollars, Cal decides to enter the bean-growing business, as a way of recouping the money his father lost in the vegetable shipping venture. He knows that if the United States enters the war, the price of beans will skyrocket. Cal hopes this will finally earn him the love and respect of his father. He goes to his mother Kate (Jo Van Fleet) to ask to borrow the capital he needs. She reluctantly lends him the five thousand dollars (approximately $85,000 in 2007's currency). Meanwhile, Aron's girlfriend Abra (Julie Harris) finds herself attracted to Cal. Cal's business goes quite well. He makes a birthday present of the money to his father. However, Adam refuses to accept any money earned by war profiteering. Cal does not understand, and sees his father's refusal to accept the gift as just another rejection. When the distraught Cal leaves the room, Abra goes after him, to console him as best she can. Aron follows and orders Cal to stay away from her. In anger, Cal takes his brother to see their mother, then returns home alone. When his father demands to know where his brother is, Cal tells him. The shock drives the pacifistic Aron to get drunk and lose his mind and then board a troop train to enlist in the army. When Sam (Burl Ives), the sheriff, brings the news, Adam rushes to the train station in a futile attempt to dissuade him, he fails and can only watch helplessly as his son steams away from him covered in blood and laughing manically.The old man then suffers a stroke, which leaves him paralyzed and unable to communicate. Cal tries to talk to him, but gets no response and leaves the bedroom. Abra pleads with Adam to show Cal some affection before it is too late. Then she drags Cal back into the room. When Cal makes his last bid for acceptance before leaving town, his father manages to speak. He tells his son to get rid of the annoying nurse and not to get anyone else, but to stay and take care of him himself.
2. Rebel without a Cause (1955): The protagonist is 17-year-old James 'Jim' Stark, shortly after he and his parents move to Los Angeles, where he enrolls at Dawson High School. The film begins with Jim brought into police station for public drunkenness. His mother, father and grandmother come to retrieve him, and Jim's family situation is introduced. Jim's parents are often fighting. Often the father is the one who tries to advocate for Jim; however, Jim's mother always succeeds during the arguments. Jim feels betrayed both by this fighting and by his father's lack of moral strength, causing feelings of unrest and displacement. This shows later in the film when he repeatedly asks his father "what do you do when you have to be a man?" While trying to conform with fellow students at the school, he becomes involved in a dispute with a local bully named Buzz Gunderson. While he tries to deal with Buzz (Corey Allen), he becomes friends with a 15-year-old boy, John, nick-named Plato (Sal Mineo), who was also at the police station the night of the opening scene for shooting puppies. Plato idolizes Jim, his real father having abandoned his family. Plato experiences many of the same problems as Jim, such as searching for meaning in life and dealing with parents who "don't understand." Jim meets Judy (Natalie Wood), whom he also recognizes from the police station, where she was brought in for being out alone after dark, who originally acts unimpressed by Jim, saying in an ironic tone "I'm bet you're a real yoyo." She belongs to the high school gang of Buzz Gunderson. The thugs challenge Jim to a "Chicken Race" with Buzz, racing stolen cars towards an abyss. The one who first jumps out of the car loses and is deemed a "chicken" (coward). The "game" ends in tragedy for Buzz when a strap on the sleeve of his leather jacket becomes caught on the car door and he is unable to jump before it goes over the cliff. Jim tries to tell his parents what happened but becomes frustrated by their failure to understand him and storms out of the house. When Jim is seen trying to go to the police by some of Buzz's friends, they decide to hunt him down, and harass Plato and Jim's family to try to find him. Judy and Plato join him in the garden of an abandoned villa, where they act out a "fantasy family," with Jim as father, Judy as mother and Plato as child. The thugs soon discover them, and Plato brandishes a gun, shooting at one of the boys, Jim, and a police officer, in a clearly unstable state. Plato hides in the Griffith Observatory which is soon besieged by the police. Jim and Judy follow him inside, and Jim convinces Plato to lend him the gun, from which he silently removes the ammunition magazine (though he neglects the round in the chamber). When Plato steps out of the observatory, he becomes unstable again at the sight of the police and charges forward, brandishing his weapon. He is shot fatally by a police officer acting in defense of himself and the bystanders, despite Jim's yelling to police that he removed the bullets. Plato was wearing Jim's jacket at the time, and as a result, Jim's parents (brought to the scene by police) think at first that Jim was shot. Mr. Stark then runs to comfort Jim, who is distraught by Plato's death. Mr. Stark promises to be a stronger father, one that his son can depend on. Thus reconciled, Jim introduces Judy to his parents.
3. Giant (1956): Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson), the head of the rich Benedict ranching family of Texas, goes to Maryland to buy a stud horse, War Winds. There he meets and courts the socialite Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor), who becomes his wife. They return to Texas to start their life together on the family ranch, Reata. Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), Bick's sister, and Leslie don't get along. Jett Rink (James Dean) the family handyman, is envious of the Benedict wealth and flirts with Leslie. Luz dies after War Winds bucks her off, and as part of her will, Jett is given a plot of land within the Benedict ranch. Bick tries to buy back the land, but Jett refuses. Jett keeps the fenced off waterhole as his home and names the property Little Reata. Leslie eventually gives birth to twins, Jordan Benedict III (Dennis Hopper), or Jordy, and Judy Benedict (Fran Bennett), and a younger daughter named Luz Jr (Carroll Baker). Jett discovers oil on his property, and when he gets his first gusher, he barges onto the Benedicts' property proclaiming in front of the entire family that he will be richer than the Benedicts. Bick and Jett have a fistfight and Jett runs off. In the years before World War II, Jett starts an oil drilling company that makes him wealthy. Bick resists the lure of oil wealth, preferring to remain a rancher. After war breaks out, Jett visits the Benedicts and convinces Bick to allow oil production to help the war effort. During this visit, Luz Jr, now a teen-aged girl, and Jett start flirting. Once oil production starts, the wealthy Benedict family becomes wealthier. In the postwar years, tensions in the Benedict household revolve around how the parents want to bring up their children. Bick wants Jordy to run the ranch, but Jordy wants to become a doctor. Leslie wants her Judy to attend finishing school in Switzerland, but Judy wants to stay in Texas for her education. The Benedict/Rink rivalry comes to a head when the Benedicts find Luz Jr. and Jett Rink have been dating. At a huge gala Jett organizes in his own honor, Jordy tries to fight him, after realizing he and his Mexican American wife, Juana (Elsa Cárdenas), were invited just so Jett's employees could turn Juana away. Bick then takes Jett to a kitchen room, about to fight him, but realizes that Jett is a shell of a man, who only has money. He tells him, "You're not even worth hitting...You're all through," and leaves. The party ends when Jett, completely drunk, slumps down in front of everyone before his big speech. Luz Jr. sees him afterwards, once everyone has left the ballroom, and discovers that he is a lonely wreck. The movie portrays how the oil industry transformed the Texas ranchers into the super rich of their generation. A major sub-plot of the movie is the racism against Mexican Americans in Texas. When the movie starts, Bick and Luz are racist towards the Mexicans who work on their ranch, which shocks Leslie. By the end of the movie, though, Bick realizes the wrongs of racism and defends his daughter-in-law and grandson, Juana and Jordan Benedict IV, respectively and earns Leslie's respect.
By James Ross & Duane Ross
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