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Bigger Than Life



Bigger Than Life (1956)

Director: Nicholas Ray
Cast: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau
Genre: Drama

About
: A mild mannered school teacher and family man (James Mason) who becomes seriously ill with a life threatening disease. The treatment is high doses of a new miracle drug, steroidal-cortisone. The cost of the cure is an addiction to the new drug, which then causes mental instability and violent delusional behavior.

Review: Director Nicholas Ray was on a roll in the 1950's, with such critically acclaimed movies as: In a Lonely Place (1950), Johnny Guitar (1954), Rebel Without a Cause (1955). In 1956 he teamed up with actor turned producer/writer, James Mason to make a big box office flop, that audiences didn't like...but critics loved...Bigger Than Life.

Shot in deluxe color, wide screen CinemaScope this was a big budget film and one of the first to show the dangers of prescription drug addition and the resulting mental illness that can occur from drug abuse. It's also noteworthy for showing us the family unit, up close and personal in a suburbia home.

Such mundane subjects were not often the subject of a film back then. As a result the movie works like a time machine and gives us a window back on the nuclear family of the 1950's.



In 1963, Jean-Luc Godard named it one of the ten best American sound films ever made.

François Truffaut praised the film, noting the "intelligent, subtle" script, the "extraordinary precision" of Mason's performance, and the beauty of the film's CinemaScope photography.

What surprised me was the turn the film takes after the first act. On the surface it appears to be a melodrama about a dying man and his family...but then James Mason's behavior grows bizarre. He becomes paranoid, he disowns his wife and hellishly torments his son.

James Mason does a great job here and gets very intense! Had this film been made by Hitchcock no doubt it would have been known as one of the great thrillers. But this isn't just a thriller, it's an exposé, we study an American family under extreme duress.



It's well done too and besides Mason who commands the screen, Barbara Rush gives a realistic performance as a believable 1950's woman, mother and wife. I really liked her in this. Walter Matthau has a supporting role as a fellow teacher and friend of the family. Oh, and look for a cameo by little Jerry Mathers, who later played The Beaver on Leave It To Beaver.