Review of Bigger Than Life (1956) by Tibor B — 16 Jan 2008

Anyone who ignorantly thinks all old movies, especially 50s family dramas, are all sweetness and light needs to check this out to start with! Teacher James Mason gets addicted to cortizone used to treat some unspecified pains and turns into a raving megalomaniac, to the point that he may kill his son in the style of Abraham, and that "God was wrong" to stop Abraham's sacrifice! Unfortunately I didn't see this in full cinemascope ratio which is a shame because Nicholas Ray is one of the masters of setting his mise en scene to the widescreen ratio.

But I could still tell there was loads of interesting compositions, as in "Rebel Without a Cause" packing the image with meaning. Mason unleashes a menace rarely seen here, and the one slight disappointment is the slightly too good to be true happy ending.