Movie #1543: Crime In The Streets (1956, Don Siegel)
I was kinda worried about this one. TCM gave it only one star. Don "Dirty Harry" Siegel made some mighty fine movies but there were a few clunkers in there too.
Not to worry. This one is great. John Cassavetes is the troubled youth with James Whitmore as the concerned social worker but the whole cast is great. It was obviously shot on the backlot and not on the streets but that does it no harm. The whole thing looks like a theatrical production rather than a film.
The ending is a little far-fetched but otherwise this is top shelf.
Movie rewatch: Rebel Without A Cause (1955, Nicholas Ray)
I've seen this one before but I'm sure what part of it I saw. This was shot in 2.55/1 aspect ratio and when I first saw it there was no such thing as letterboxing. What I probably saw was pan&scan. Also, I remember this as a b&w movie - that was probably because I had a b&w TV at the time.
I started watching this at my niece's place where she had it on pay-per-view from the cable company. They showed the opening credits in the correct aspect ratio but then chopped off the ends to probably about 2/1. I finished watching it on TCM and because the aspect ratio didn't change after the opening titles, it was probably in the correct ratio. However, the TCM picture was not nearly as sharp as the pay-per-view.
Oh the movie? Ya, it's a good one. How good depends on how much of that James Dean squirming you can take.
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