Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

blanche-2 "East of Eden" from 1955 is based on the John Steinbeck novel of the same name, beautifully realized on the screen by Elia Kazan, with James Dean as the perfect Cal.It is the modern story of Cain and Abel, with the brothers Cal and Aron in California around the time of World War I. The film covers the last third of the book, and it ends a little differently.The story in both book and film centers around choice; in the book, the subject comes up with a discussion of the correct translation of the Hebrew word "timshel" which means "may." God blesses Cain with free will, leaving the choice to him ("Thou mayest rule over him")This is not only a heart-wrenching story and script, but the acting is across the board superb.Kazan was struck by how much Dean was like Cal and actually observed his uneasy relationship with his father, so he gave him free rein with the role.He is magnificent as a young man jealous of his brother (Richard Davalos) and wanting his father's (Raymond Massey) love desperately, seeking to be understood. The only one who does is his brother's girlfriend, Abra (Julie Harris). Harris, one of the great Broadway actresses of her time, is lovely as the empathic young woman, who finds herself torn as she realizes she is in love with Cal and not Aaron. Richard Davalos, the handsome "good" boy Aron, does a marvelous job, and he has great chemistry with Dean. Their interactions are intense.Elia Kazan was always sorry he hired Raymond Massey, feeling he did not have the range the director wanted, but as the stern, principled, religious father, he is excellent. He absolutely hated James Dean, who deliberately provoked him -- Dean was big into the Method -- and complained that one had to "stand around and wait for him to act." Kazan used the dislike to the character's advantage too.This was Jo Van Fleet's film debut, though she had done television and had won a Tony award for "A Trip to Bountiful." For her role as a bordello madam in East of Eden, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Kazan used her again in Wild River, another brilliant performance. And the cast is great right down to the smaller roles, played by Lois Smith, Burl Ives, and Albert Dekker. Of the cast, only Smith and Davalos are still alive as of this writing. Someone reviewing it on this board said your feelings about the film change with age, as one loses one's parents, etc. I have to agree. It grows richer.East of Eden the book was a seminal for me, and I feel as deeply about the film. A true masterpiece.

TheLittleSongbird OK, the book is a masterpiece, very layered and beautifully and intelligently written with complex characters and plenty of emotional wallop. It is a very wordy and sometimes sprawling book as well as a long one, so when it comes to be adapted things will be missed out. The film may not the greatest of adaptations, it's not as complex, Kate and Aron are far more interesting in the book(Aron could be seen as the driving force and Kate is not a plot device) and there's the omission of Lee(the one that could be seen as the character who links everything together). Despite all that though, as a film on its own- which is a much fairer way to judge because book and film are two different mediums, there are plenty of films that are not good adaptations but are great films- East of Eden is still a great film and a powerful one too. With the only flaw for me being the occasionally heavy handed direction with an over-reliance of camera tilts, sure they are deliberate choices to show the character contrasts and how distorted the relationship with Cal and his father has become but there were parts where the technique technique wasn't needed like at the dinner table. Timothy Carey's voice not sounding like Timothy Carey is a touch jarring, but not enough to be a flaw. Kazan's direction is mostly fine though and East of Eden is a wonderfully-made film, sumptuous in colour and brilliantly shot(excepting a few of the tilted camera shots), especially in the poppy field which hasn't aged a jot and actually looks as though it was shot outdoors. Some of it is clever too like with Dean standing in the doorway, the shadow that you see very symbolic of how twisted and vengeful Cal is by this point. Leonard Rosenman's score is very lush-sounding with a very sophisticated vibe, enhancing the mood in every scene beautifully. East of Eden is very intelligently written if wordy like in the book and the story is still compelling and powerful, the ending and Cal giving his father the money and his father rejecting it are heart-breaking scenes. A lot of the details from the book may not be there but the spirit and the meaning of it are. The characters drive the film very well and are interesting, especially Cal who is a very tormented character who we do feel lots of empathy for. And the acting is great, Julie Harris may be too mature but her performance is still full of innocence and compassion, Burl Ives is a charming presence, Jo Van Fleet makes Kate very memorable and layered despite her quite short screen time, Raymond Massey is perfect as the at times controlling father and Richard Davalos' screen debut is a wonderful one, you hate him at first but in the climatic scene for instance you do feel empathy for him. But the best performance does come from James Dean who is superb and the emotional power of his performance really hit home with me. His role in Rebel Without a Cause may be more iconic(and for good reason) but his role as Cal is played with more depth I feel. Overall, as an adaptation East of Eden may not be great and will leave fans wanting but as a film it is truly excellent with a lot of powerful things. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Movie Critic This movie simplifies the book down to a plot of a troubled "teen" (James Dean a bit too old at 24) trying to win approval from an overly puritanical father.This boiled down story from Steinbeck's book is not particularly lame by Hollywood standards and stands on its own. Dean is decent in the role...Kate is simply a hard hooker not the demonic character in the book who burns her parents alive. However it disappoints because the book has such interesting characters like Kate and Lee. All the movie offers is some sort of dull coming of age thing.But how can a movie possibly cover a long novel?---it can't in fact when movies try to cover books too fully the result is always bad---with rapid untethered jarring snippets of dialogue and action from the book which if covered fully would take 50 hours of screen time.The German who is barely covered in the book gets much too big a role in this movie in some sort of Hollywood PC moral lesson...other than that I guess the biggest complaint is it is all rather boring.In the end Caleb wins his Dad's love when his Dad asks him to take the place of the nurse. Yawn...Do Not Recommend

daviddaphneredding This Warner Brothers production probably was James Dean's greatest feat. In this character study, he comes across excellently as the bitter brother Cal (Caleb) Trask who is, for all practical purposes, unloved and rejected. When he is supposed to be hostile, he is very much this way toward his brother Aron, played superbly by Richard Davalos. Raymond Massey, definitely an outstanding actor, as the father Adam Trask was one you wanted to hate because of his bitterness and hard-cored hate toward the youngest son Cal, while at the same time he definitely wanted everyone to know that he loved Aron. It's only fair and more accurate to say that the movie is based on only a part of John Steinbeck's outstanding novel. It doesn't deal with Adam Trask as a baby and young boy, and later the man who was abandoned by his wife Cathy. In turn, it doesn't deal with Cathy as the promiscuous person who was this way even as a girl. Still, it is an outstanding production. Again, the story addressed the matter of hypocrisy, since Adam and Aron were allegedly the Christians in the family. They were, again, however, hypocrites since they didn't really love Cal. In the story, in their early days of marriage Cathy Trask left Adam because he was, in a sense, claiming to be so good. Though Jo Van Fleet did not act in any "outstanding" movie, she was very capable in this movie as the madam which Cathy Trask became. She should be given credit for this, despite the role of the base person she portrayed. It can be, as has been, considered a modern-day parody of the story of Cain and Abel. In one scene, after a gift Cal gave his father Adam was rejected, which spurned Cal to kill his brother, after the "killing" (which was actually a nervous breakdown on Aron's part after Cal one day "introduced" Aron to their mother) when Adam asks Cal where Aron was, Cal answers by saying he didn't know and then says in a smart-aleck manner that he was not his brother's keeper. (Of course, the "modern day" was 1917 in northern California.) Again, it was an excellent character study, and a superb role for Dean which only he could have patentedly played. And too, it was a great masterpiece for the producer Elia Kazan. The pristine beauty of northern California was impressive. Because of the beautiful scenery, the excellent acting, and the probing story, this great production is considered something of a classic.