Cal Trask (James Dean) just wants to be loved in Elia Kazan’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s EAST OF EDEN
EAST OF EDEN (Elia Kazan, 1955)
Bryant Park
Sixth Ave. between 40th & 42nd Sts.
Monday, June 27, free, sunset
Festival continues Mondays through August 22
www.bryantpark.org
“I guess there’s just a certain amount of good and bad you get from your parents and I just got the bad,” Cal (James Dean) says in Elia Kazan’s cinematic adaptation of part of John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, East of Eden, a modern retelling of the biblical Cain and Abel story. In his first starring role, Dean received a posthumous Oscar nomination for his moody, angst-ridden performance as Cal Trask, a troubled young man who discovers that the mother (Best Supporting Actress winner Jo Van Fleet) he thought was dead is actually alive and well and running a successful house of prostitution nearby. Cal tries to win his father’s (Raymond Massey as Adam Trask) love and acceptance any way he can, including helping him develop his grand plan to transport lettuce from their farm via refrigerated railway cars, but his father seems to always favor his other son, Aron (Richard Davalos). Aron, meanwhile, is in love with Abra (Julie Harris), a sweet young woman who takes a serious interest in Cal and desperately wants him to succeed. But the well-meaning though misunderstood Cal does things his own way, which gets him in trouble with his father and brother, the mother who wants nothing to do with him, the sheriff (Burl Ives), and just about everyone else he comes in contact with. Set in Monterey and Salinas, East of Eden begins with a grand overture by Leonard Rosenman, announcing the film is going to be a major undertaking, and it lives up to its billing. Dean is masterful as Cal, peppering Paul Osborn’s script with powerful improvisational moments as he expresses his frustration with his family and life in general. His inner turmoil threatens to explode in both word and gesture as he just seeks to be loved. Dean would follow up East of Eden with seminal roles in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant before his death in a car crash in 1955 at the age of twenty-four, leaving behind a remarkable legacy that has influenced generations of actors ever since. East of Eden is screening June 27 at the Bryant Park Summer Film Festival, which continues Monday nights through August 22 with such other classic flicks as Preston Sturges’s The Palm Beach Story, Richard Donner’s The Omen, and Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter.
For her birthday this year, Tomiko Hirata (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) wants something simple from her stubborn, not-very-thoughtful husband of fifty years, Shuzo (Isao Hashizume): a divorce. That shocking wish sends the entire Hirata clan into a frenzy in Yoji Yamada’s charmingly bittersweet What a Wonderful Family! The retired Shuzo doesn’t know what he’ll do without Tomiko, but he is not the kind of man to share his feelings; instead, he prefers to go to a local watering hole and flirt with the cute bartender, play golf, or take the dog, Toto, to the park. Their daughter, Shigeko (Tomoko Nakajima), is mad at her husband, Taizo Kanai (Shozo Hayashiya), for stretching the truth about one of his hobbies. Eldest son Konosuke (Masahiko Nishimura) tends not to get involved, even as his wife, Fumie (Yui Natsukawa), essentially runs the household and their children, Kenichi (Takanosuke Nakamura) and Nobusuke (Ayumu Maruyama), just run around. And youngest son Shota (Satoshi Tsumabuki) has a promising future that just might include his new girlfriend, Noriko Mamiya (Yu Aoi), although all of the divorce talk suddenly has him thinking twice.
Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari’s debut feature documentary, T-Rex, is an exciting, dare we say hard-hitting look at a teenager attempting to literally fight her way out of depressed and troubled Flint, Michigan. When she was eleven years old, Claressa Shields walked into FWC Berston Gym and immediately showed the kind of skill, desire, and drive that made former professional boxer Jason Crutchfield take her under his wing as coach and mentor, thinking she had enormous potential. “A coach always wants a champion,” he says in the film. “Believe me. That’s why we coach. I just never thought it was going to be a girl.” Claressa trains every day, her sights set on becoming the first woman — actually, she’ll be a mere seventeen years old — to win a gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics, which has added the sport of women’s boxing to its wide-ranging roster of competitive sports. It’s not only a personal quest but a way to help get her poor, undereducated, broken family out of Flint. Her parents are divorced and each has a new partner, her father spent seven years in prison, and her tough-talking younger sister dreams of having ten babies. Allowing Cooper and Canepari full access, Claressa shows herself to be an exceptional boxer as well as a smart, intelligent person with a strong grasp of reality. She also has the confidence and swagger of Muhammad Ali; in fact, the relationship between the Greatest and his daughter, former world champion Laila Ali, serves as a major inspiration to her in her gritty, determined quest.
Penny Lane’s wonderfully titled, inventively told “Nuts!” tells the wacky true tale of Dr. John R. Brinkley, a pivotal twentieth-century figure who was part P. T. Barnum, part Donald Trump, a controversial doctor or a quack, a radio pioneer or a snake-oil charlatan, depending on one’s opinion. He became rich and famous by surgically implanting goat glands into men’s testicles, claiming it increased virility, but his story is about much more than that. “This is a film about John Romulus Brinkley, a doctor, amongst other things, a man who succeeded against terrible odds and powerful opposition, a man who changed the world,” narrator Gene Tognacci explains early on. Lane, who previously profiled another intriguing individual in her debut feature-length documentary, 2013’s 
