{"id":15058,"date":"2011-05-05T22:49:39","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T06:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15058"},"modified":"2011-05-06T06:07:51","modified_gmt":"2011-05-06T14:07:51","slug":"bigger-than-life-nicholas-ray-1956-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15058","title":{"rendered":"Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray, 1956): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at the TCM Film Fest, Hollywood, CA.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 A school teacher’s medical dependency on Cortisone, turns from\u00a0melodrama into horror, making every issue Bigger Than Life<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ed Avery (James Mason) is an under-paid school teacher who moonlights as a dispatcher for the Yellow Cab Company, when he begins suffering from severe bouts of pain and inflammation.\u00a0 Lou Avery (Barbara Rush) is\u00a0his loving wife, who\u00a0supports Ed through his various medical tests, diagnosis, and treatment.<\/p>\n

He is given an experimental drug for a life threatening illness,\u00a0and\u00a0is instructed to take one tablet of Cortisone every six hours.\u00a0 The drug works wonders on his health, but since drastic mood swings are a common side-effect,\u00a0either surging with euphoria or\u00a0plummeting into depression, Ed becomes confused with his dosage and takes too much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He immediately quits his job as a dispatcher, suggesting to his boss that one of the cabbies ought to drop off his paycheck, and then takes his wife out on a wild shopping spree, all the while popping more pills.<\/p>\n

Ed’s friend and fellow teacher Wally Gibbs (Walter Matthau) becomes suspicious of his\u00a0behavior and alerts Lou, who ignores the warning signs, all the while Ed and son Richie (Christopher Olsen) play an extremely rough game of football inside the living room.<\/p>\n

On Open House night at school, Ed is feeling unusually bold in his classroom amongst the parents, and in a matter-of-fact tone he belts out his diatribe on how “children by nature are lazy, greedy, and untruthful,” and while catching the attention of one, but shocking the rest, Ed continues with “childhood is a congenital disease, and education is the cure,” just as the principal enters the room.<\/p>\n

By now, Ed\u00a0is secretly hiding his meds, and going ballistic on the milkman for clinking his bottles.\u00a0 He severely reprimands his son for not catching a football toss, and while considering a proper punishment, he concludes to his wife\u00a0that a murder\/suicide of the entire family is the only viable solution,\u00a0with which Lou finally concedes there’s a problem.<\/p>\n

Bigger Than Life <\/em>proved too advanced for 1956, and was not well received by critics or the box office.\u00a0 Replicating a Sirk melodrama in the first half,\u00a0mid-way through, the film turns hideously dark in tone, and although slightly campy at the end with sharp scissors, a fist fight, and a broken banister, it has stood the test of time,\u00a0since prescription drug abuse\u00a0is common today.<\/p>\n

True to form, Nicholas Ray’s\u00a0protagonists always experience some traumatic emotional turmoil, and Mason is superb as the fractured Ed Avery.\u00a0 The gifted James Mason is most often remembered for his role as Norman Maine\u00a0in the wonderful remake of A Star Is Born <\/em>(George Cukor, 1954), but his Captain Nemo of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea<\/em> (Richard Fleischer, 1954)\u00a0is an\u00a0unforgettable performance.\u00a0 He had a natural acting style, that seemed comfortable with every diverse character he portrayed.<\/p>\n

Wally Gibbs is one of Walter Matthau’s earlier screen roles and hints at the great career that followed, in films such as Don\u00a0Siegel’s\u00a0Charley Varrick<\/em> (1973).<\/p>\n

The lovely Barbara Rush was present at this screening to answer varied\u00a0questions about her film career, for which she was thankful.\u00a0 Having known Robert Osborne for many years, she referred to him as “the encyclopedia.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at the TCM Film Fest, Hollywood, CA. \u00a0 A school teacher’s medical dependency on Cortisone, turns from\u00a0melodrama into horror, making every issue Bigger Than Life. Ed Avery (James Mason) is an under-paid school teacher who moonlights as a dispatcher for the Yellow Cab Company, when he begins suffering from severe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3,178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films","category-tcm-film-festival-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}