: Study Questions: Week Two

The Dark Sides of 1950s Dreams

Rebel Without a Cause (1956)

Peyton Place (1957)

The promise of the American Dream envisioned in the films from yesterday was counterpointed in the later 1950s by a number of films which portrayed the destructive forces which were at work beneath the surfaceof American society. Juvenile delinquents (the young at odds with their culture and its rules) has a long history in the Hollywood vision of America. They appear in different roles and are treated from different perspectives from the law-breaking children in the gangster films of the 1930s ( The Public Enemy, 1931; Angels With Dirty Faces, 1938; and Crime School, 1938) to the counter-culture rebels in films of the 1960s and 1970s (Easy Rider, 1969; Alice's Restaurant, 1969; and The Strawberry Statement,1970. During the decades after World War II, they often appear as "social problems" whose presence is at odds with the social harmony and domestic tranquility that was an essential aspect of the American Dream. Juvenile delinquents became especially important when they appear in middle-class families as in Rebel Without a Cause, invade peaceful communities as in The Wild One (1954), or threaten youth-centered institutions as in The Blackboard Jungle (1955). This week's films both reveal the ways in which juvenile delinquency was linked to the American Dream and thediverse ways in which the "problem" can be found in Hollywood films.

Another sub-genre of films which explored the discontents of the 1950s were the domestic melodramas that focussed on repressive and often destructive influences of what are described as "traditional family values." Peyton Place, which was based on a best-selling (and faintly scandalous) novel, is one of the best examples of these films. Others include All that Heaven Allows (1955), Ten North Frederick (1958), The Best of Everything (1959), and Imitation of Life (1959). These domestic melodramas became the basis for far more scathing and satirical treatments of "family values" in The Graduate (1967) and American Beauty (1998).

1. This section of the course takes up films which deal with young rebels who refuse to accept the model world envisioned by their parents, who call into question the American Dream. In what ways do Rebel Without a Cause and Peyton Place offer two very different causes of youth rebellion? Consider the social background of the central characters (class, race, setting).

2. What is the significance of the film's title: Rebel Without a Cause? Is it to be taken literally or ironically? Why might the three central characters seem to have no cause? Does the film suggest that there actually is a cause? What is it?

3. To what degree are fathers seen as the cause of troubled children in both Peyton Place and Rebel? What are their individual failings? What is the source of the conflict between Judy and her father? Contrast them to the problems encountered by young people and fathers (or father figures) throughout Peyton Place.

4. Why do the three central characters of Rebel meet in the juvenile division of the local police department? What is suggested about institutional authority in this sequence? Is this authority hostile to the troubled central characters? Or is it an alternative to incompetent and irresponsible parents? What institutions perform a similar function in Peyton Place?

5. How does the omnipresent image of Jim's Grandmother signify a criticism of maternal influence? Consider the mothers (or absence of mothers) in the film. From the way Rebel reveals their failings, can you deduce how a good mother ought to behave? Alison MacKenzie's mother (Lana Turner) is also a problem for her child. How does the film manage to make her more sympathetic?

6. Does the popularity of psychotherapy and social work during the 1950s seem to be justified in the film, or are these "helping professions" being revealed as inadequate? Consider the behavior of the police department's kind-hearted social worker in Rebel or the sympathetic doctor in Peyton Place.

7. Does Rebel seem to endorse the American Dream (at least the family aspect)? Does it suggest that the Dream is in need of professional help? Does treating juvenile delinquency as a psychological problem that can be "treated" help disguise some real problems which might be an intrinsic part of the Dream?

8. If the gang pursuing Jim represents a threat to the Dream, what sort of social, classes, races, values do they symbolize? What are the social backgrounds of the destructive and villainous characters in Peyton Place?

9. What is the symbolic significance of the class trip to the planetarium in Rebel? How is the lecture on the earth's final cataclysm related to the film's action and the psychic state of the characters? In what way might the appearance of the overly intellectual astronomer in the film's final shot tend to undercut the somewhat optimistic ending?

10. How does the sequence in the deserted mansion both support and call into question the desire for a happy, emotionally fulfilling nuclear family? How is it parallel thematically to the relationship between Allison MacKenzie and Norman Page in Rebel?

11. In what ways might Rebel be described as the account of a rite of passage which leads Jim and Judy into adulthood? Might the same be said of Allison and her friends in Peyton Place. Why? Why not?

12. How are we to interpret the apparent reconciliation between Jim and his parents? Will it succeed, or is he reconciled only by leaving them? How does this conclusion appear to be thematically different from Allison's return to Peyton Place in that film's conclusion?

13. If the "social problems" in Rebel are primarily psychological, in what ways does Peyton Place present them as primarily sociological?

14. How does the opening establishing shot of Camden, Maine from the air serve to suggest an ideal American town that later events revealas illusory?

15. How does the choice of a new high school principal for Peyton Place symbolize the forces changing American society during the 1940s qnd 1950s? Are we to see these changes as a sign of progress or of communal decline?