FAQ for
Rebel Without a Cause (1955) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Rebel Without a Cause can be found here.

The title for this movie was taken from psychiatrist Robert Lindner's 1944 book, Rebel Without A Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath but has no other relationship to the book. The screenplay for Rebel Without a Cause was written by Irving Shulman, Stewart Stern, and Nicholas Ray (who also directed this film).

Jim (James Dean) and Buzz (Corey Allen) were driving stolen cars. After both cars went over the cliff, Jim drove home in his own car.

Yes and yes and yes. The character John "Plato" Crawford (Sal Mineo) in Rebel Without a Cause was gay as was the Greek philosopher Plato [@428-348 BC]. Sal Mineo admitted to being bisexual in a 1972 interview, but he dated men exclusively during the last years of his life.

In addition to Rebel Without a Cause, James Dean had starring roles in two other movies before his untimely death in 1955. In East of Eden (1955), he played the black sheep brother in the Trask family, and in Giant (1956), he played an oil tycoon. Dean was nominated posthumously for an Academy Award as Best Actor in a Leading Role in both of these films.

Dean was killed in a head-on collision while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder on what was then U.S. Route 466 (now State Route 46) near Cholame, California on 30 September, 1955.

The hit Warner Bros. motion picture, Rebel Without A Cause, had its Midwest Premiere in Chicago at the State Lake theatre on Thursday, November 17, 1955; an ad in the Chicago Tribune, same date, states: Midwest Premiere---Today---9 am, last feature, 10:30 pm; This Kid Has a Chip on Both Shoulders! He's Jim Stark, teenager, who thinks he has to be bad to make good . . . ;Warner Bros. presents James Dean in a challenging drama of today's juvenile violence---"Rebel Without A Cause"; Cinemascope, Warnercolor; co-starring Natalie Wood, with Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen, William Hopper.

Gossip Column Item:

Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, October 26, 1955, pt. 3, p. 4, c. 1:

Tower Ticker, by Herb Lyon

" . . . James Dean's last movie, "Rebel Without a Cause," is next up at the State Lake. This is the one they're saying may get him a posthumous academy award . . . . "

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This film was sent out to neighborhood theatres in Chicago on Friday, January 13, 1956 . . .