Main Cast: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Robert Simon, Christopher Olsen
Release Year: 1956
Country: US
Run Time: 95 minutes
Plot
Based on an article in the New Yorker, Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life stars James Mason (who also produced the film) as elementary school teacher Ed Avery, a thoughtful, gentle man, with a loving wife, Lou (Barbara Rush), and a young son, Richie (Christopher Olsen), who loves him. Avery is successful and well liked in his community, but he is over-extended in his pursuit of the American dream -- he secretly works a second job to earn extra money, and doesn't dare break stride, despite the increasingly painful physical spasms that he suffers. He collapses one day, and the doctors inform him that he suffers from an arterial disease that will probably give him less than a year to live. But they also offer him one hope, with treatment using cortisone, which was then a new, not-fully-tested drug. Avery makes a seemingly full recovery and returns to work, but it soon becomes clear that he's not the same -- he has a new, cavalier attitude toward money, and then Lou becomes alarmed over his expressions of rage over seemingly insignificant annoyances. He starts expressing himself in grand, exalted terms, first to Lou and then to his colleagues at school, including his closest friend, Wally Gibbs (Walter Matthau). And matters only get worse when Wally determines that it is the cortisone -- which Ed has been taking in far greater doses than prescribed -- that is making him act this way. And his obsession w ith forcing Richie to live up to his full potential soon turns into a much darker fixation. Director Ray later offered regret over having used cortisone by name, as it was still not standard treatment and its benefits and drawbacks weren't known. But this did lend the movie a verisimilitude that was essential for what appeal it did hold for audiences. (Seven years later, screenwriter William Read Woodfield would incorporate Bigger Than Life's cortisone plot device into his script for the Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea episode \"Mutiny\". Bigger Than Life's more immediate problem at the time lay in its broader plot -- with a story that brought drug addiction and fact-based psychological unhingement into a suburban American setting, it was a daring subject for its time, for which audiences were unprepared in 1956. It was also one of a group of offbeat pictures that Mason produced as well as starred in. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life never achieved the critical or popular success of his Rebel Without a Cause, released the previous year, but it holds up as an equally powerful look at the dark and troubling underside of life in a "normal" American family. While Rebel Without a Cause explored the impact of a weak and ineffectual father on a teenager struggling to assert his maturity and masculinity, Bigger Than Life examined the other side of a similar situation, as Ed Avery (James Mason) slowly mutates into an aggressively domineering father willing to murder a child who can't live up to his high standards. While on the surface Bigger Than Life is a warning about the use of untested and possibly dangerous drugs (Avery's psychosis is brought on by dangerously high dosages of cortisone, still in the experimental stages at the time), what's most memorable about the film is Mason's superbly modulated performance (one of the best of his career), in which he gradually transforms from a typical high school teacher and suburban dad into a megalomaniac who refuses to accept anything less than perfection from his students or his family -- even going so far to suggest he can do better than God in his judgment of his son's worth. Mason and Ray took the typically over-ambitious father who pesters Junior for good grades and a home run in his next little league game, and exaggerated him into something truly terrifying; if Rebel Without a Cause made suggested that juvenile delinquency could happen in a "good" home, Bigger Than Life went even farther in suggesting just how sinister a "good" home could be. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Roland Winters - Dr. Rurich; Rusty Lane - La Porte; Rachel Stephens - Nurse; Kipp Hamilton - Pat Wade; Betty Caulfield - Mrs. La Porte; Virginia Carroll - Mrs. Jones; Renny McEvoy - Mr. Jones; Billy Jones - Mr. Byron; Lee Aaker - Joe; Jerry Mathers - Freddie; Portland Mason - Nancy; Natalie Masters - Mrs Tyndal; Richard Collier - Milkman; Lewis Charles - Dr MacLennan; Gus Schilling - Druggist; Alex Frazer - Clergyman; Mary Carver - Saleslady; Eugenia Paul - Saleslady; Nan Dolan - Dr. Norton's Nurse; William Schallert - Pharmacist
Credit
Jack Martin Smith - Art Director, Lyle Wheeler - Art Director, Charles LeMaire - Costume Designer, Mary Wills - Costume Designer, Eli Dunn - First Assistant Director, Nicholas Ray - Director, Louis Loeffler - Editor, David Raksin - Composer (Music Score), Ben Nye, Sr. - Makeup, Joe MacDonald - Cinematographer, James Mason - Producer, Stuart A. Reiss - Set Designer, Walter Scott - Set Designer, W.D. Flick - Sound/Sound Designer, Harry M. Leonard - Sound/Sound Designer, Cyril Hume - Screenwriter, Richard Maibaum - Screenwriter, Berton Roueche - Book Author
Bigger Than Life is an American film made in 1956 directed by Nicholas Ray and starring James Mason, who also co-wrote and produced the film, about a school teacher and family man whose life spins out of control upon becoming addicted to cortisone. The film co-stars Barbara Rush as his wife and Walter Matthau as his closest friend, a fellow teacher. Though it was a box-office flop upon its initial release, many modern critics hail it as a masterpiece and a brilliant indictment of the conformist 1950s suburbia.[citation needed]
Synopsis
Schoolteacher and family man Ed Avery, who has been suffering bouts of severe pain and even blackouts, is hospitalized with what's diagnosed as a rare inflammation of the arteries. Told by doctors that he probably has only months to live, Ed agrees to an experimental treatment: doses of the hormone cortisone.
Ed makes a remarkable recovery. He returns home to his wife, Lou, and their son, Richie. He must keep taking cortisone tablets regularly to prevent a recurrence of his illness. But the 'miracle' cure turns into a nightmare as Ed starts to misuse the tablets, causing him to experience wild mood swings and, ultimately, a psychotic episode which threatens the safety of his family.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
