East Of Eden Reviews

East of Eden

Oh god, first film I ever saw with James Dean and it was awful. Hardly stuck to the plot of the book, and jumped in to the middle of the story missing everything out that made the characters act in the way that they did.

Avoid at all costs, go and read the book.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Rebel,rebel your film is a mess.

I have no doubt that when he first appeared on screen, people (particularly teenagers) must have worshipped this bloke.

However, nowadays, for me anyway,he's just another fellow with a bit of chip on his shoulder.

Admittedly, the scenes with his father (Massey) do work , but that's about it as far as i'm concerned.

The film is NOT the book!

This film covers only a small portion of the BRILLIANT BOOK so don't expect it to have the same satisfying depth. However, taken in its own right, an enjoyable film with some fine performances, but DO READ THE BOOK!!

East of Eden

Excellent acting especially by James Dean

Real life drama in a small town in America. There was an interesting exchange between the German and the American showing how people can be easily changed.

Dean shows class

James Dean's performance is incredible. Worth a look to see some fine acting.

Terrible

This film should have been excellent: it's based on a wonderful novel with a great plot and beautiful, spare imagery. The film, on the other hand, is utter rubbish, and fails to engage with any of the themes of the novel - betrayal, filial love, the yearning to do the right thing while being pulled towards sin - on any meaningful level. The actors either ham it up, or are completely asleep throughout the film.

read the book

this film is basically an excuse for James Dean to strut around your TV screen for an hour or so. This is one of my favourite books, however in this film the characters are completely misinterpreted, 90% of the story is missing, which makes the story confusing and pretty boring.

The Dangerous Brothers

As any fule no, this film is a mild reworking of the biblical 'Cain and Abel' yarn, but also, far more crucially, one of Jimmy Dean's 3 movies. The Dean Legend makes it hard to judge what is essentially quite a weak and sappy morality movie, with some quite clunky characterisation and poor script. You watch it for Dean, all smouldering malevolence and pent-up sexuality, with a real physicality to his acting which strongly betrays his stage roots - nobody moved like him, or moves like him still. Some of the screen-test extras are quite interesting, especially the one where Dean wrestles in his underwear with his on-screen brother...

[Highly rated reviewer]

You have to forget the book- its great!

This is only a small part of the Steinbeck saga, but it makes an excellent film that way. Despite the excellent performances by Julie Harris, et al, James Dean walks off with the film- he makes his hateful, self-pitying nasty little brat character human, forgivable and captivating- which is all that the film hangs on- you must empathise with him despite everything he does or you won't enjoy this.

Its hard to imagine anyone watching this film and not being moved by it.

A Legend!

I saw this film originally so long ago now but seeing it again recently really makes you realise just how big a movie star James Dean had become in such a short space in time. The film shows how intense a person he was and how perfectly he played his role in the film. Such an enjoyable film! Thankyou for downloading it for me.

Regards Margaret Chilton