One of the most fortunate developments of Hollywood in the 1950s, arguably its Golden Age, was the rise of great actors to become great producers. To the list of Kirk Douglas, But Lancaster, and Humphrey Bogart, we can add James Mason for, sadly, this unprofitable picture. After his presentation of the limitations of middle class life, in "Rebel Without A Cause" (1955), Director Nicholas Ray was ideally chosen for this related project. "A man's home is his castle" was a saying heard in the 1950s, as people fled their apartment buildings for a palace of their own in more natural settings. Wives and children were verifications of their prowess. In this screenplay, to which Clifford Odets made an uncredited contribution, James Mason is stricken with a rare illness for which an experimental drug is prescribed. His psychological changes lead to a megalomaniacal line, spoken with great certainty, one of the best in film history, "God was wrong!" The smugness of the bourgeois is deftly mocked. Barbara Rush returned as the unhappy housewife in another excellent suburban story, "Strangers When We Meet" (1960) with Walter Matthau again the helpful neighbor. During Mason's living room breakdown, on the TV is a whirling amusement park ride. Did it inspire Vincente Minelli's magnificent climax to "Some Came Running" (1958)? There's good reason why Jean-Luc Godard considered this one of the ten greatest American sound movies, which is higher praise than I can give it.
Review of Bigger Than Life
