Details

Release year: 1957

Storyline

This documentary, which was undertaken soon after James Dean's death, looks at Dean's life through the use of still photographs with narration, and interviews with many of the people involved in his short life.

Top credits

Directors

Writers

Stewart Stern

Cast

Martin Gabel — Narrator
James Dean — Self ('East of Eden' screen test footage)
Lew Bracker — Self
Marvin Carter — Self

See all 34 credits →

Did you know

• Originally conceived as a biographical film. Elvis Presley lobbied to play James Dean, but the decision was taken to make a documentary instead.

• Robert Altman's first choice for the narrator was Marlon Brando. Originally, when he was approached, he gave it serious consideration but said, "Toward the end I think he (Dean) was beginning to find his own way as an actor. But this glorifying of Dean is all wrong. That's why I believe the documentary could be important. To show he wasn't a hero; show what he really was--just a lost boy trying to find himself." In the end, Brando refused the offer and Warner Brothers took over the project from Altman, hiring Martin Gabel, a former member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre Company, to narrate the documentary from a script by Stewart Stern. The latter had not only co-written Rebel Without a Cause (1955) but had also been a close friend of Dean's.

• James Dean's father refused to contribute to the film.