Movie Reviews by Jo

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Staring: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean

The last movie of James Dean and what an amazing film it is. His character, Jett Rink, isn’t very similar to the other characters he played in his more famous films such as Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and East of Eden (1955). This character has a certain maturity you don’t see much in the roles that he played. The character that he plays is, for lack of a better word, an adult which I think is very fascinating to see especially with the teen idol persona his legacy has brought on.

Now on to the film, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson play Leslie and Bick Benedict a recently married couple who move to his ranch in Texas which is also owned by his sister Luz played by Carroll Baker. Jett is the ranch hand of the farm but soon becomes Bick’s rival. Leslie, initially, has a hard time adjusting to Texan life as she is from Maryland. When reading the description of the film, Leslie is described as “Spoiled” which I was very confused about. She usually challenges gender roles in Texan society and is the foil to Bick’s ideas of what it means to be a man. She never comes across as spoiled but as trying to fit in but, at the same time, trying to keep her ideals.

One of the other major themes of the film is race. Latino people are seen as less than the whites. Bick enforces this ideal in the beginning of the film, refusing to let his family doctor treat them. Leslie, however, views them as equals and tries to help them every chance she gets. I thought that this theme is very well portrayed thought the film and is very different from other movies of the 50s.