East of Eden

Movie Review: East of Eden

Year of Release: 1955
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey

Plot outline: Two brothers compete for their father's approval and a woman's love (IMDb).

Only a small part of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" has been used in this movie version of it that the producer has done, and it is questionable whether that part contains the best of the book. It is the part that has to do with the conflict between the farmer, Adam Trask, and Cal, his son - the one who is obsessed with a sense of "badness" and jealousy toward his brother, whom his father loves. It also contains the later details of the career of the monstrous mother of the boys and the story of the sweetheart of Brother Aron who forsakes him for the more exciting Cal. Compressed in a script, which reduces the mother to little more than a black shrouded figure of a madam of a sporting-house in a California town, this quarter-part of the novel is boiled down to a review of the coincidental way in which the conflict between the father and son is resolved. Yet Elia Kazan has at it, in this movie that runs for two hours with such elaborate pictorial build-up and such virtuosity on his actors' part that he gets across the illusion of a drama more pregnant than it is. In one respect, it is brilliant. (NYT)

My judgement: ***1/2 out of 4 stars