PhilPaine.com

I must admit that James Dean’s per­for­mance was as amaz­ing as all the film books say, though it is hard to feel much sym­pa­thy for the extreme­ly annoy­ing char­ac­ter he por­trays, and hard to see why this char­ac­ter was so admired. Ray­mond Massey’s sub­tle per­for­mance should not be ignored. The first would not have worked with­out the oth­er. Elia Kazan’s direc­tion bal­ances inti­ma­cy with a sense of grandeur, and man­ages to make a very talky book into a watch­able film.