Bigger than Life (1956)
Country: US
Technical: Eastmancolor/Cinemascope 95m
Director: Nicholas Ray
Cast: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher with a rare arterial disorder is prescribed cortisone but fails to keep to the required dosage and develops psychotic problems, ultimately trying to kill his own son.
Review:
An extraordinary project, clearly close to Mason's heart (he produced); it treats its serious medical issues with some frankness but fails to avoid descending into melodrama. It sits in that limbo between traditional Hollywood family fare and the new adult realism that increasingly characterised films from the fifties onwards, and consequently doesn't quite convince with its abruptly happy ending.
Country: US
Technical: Eastmancolor/Cinemascope 95m
Director: Nicholas Ray
Cast: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher with a rare arterial disorder is prescribed cortisone but fails to keep to the required dosage and develops psychotic problems, ultimately trying to kill his own son.
Review:
An extraordinary project, clearly close to Mason's heart (he produced); it treats its serious medical issues with some frankness but fails to avoid descending into melodrama. It sits in that limbo between traditional Hollywood family fare and the new adult realism that increasingly characterised films from the fifties onwards, and consequently doesn't quite convince with its abruptly happy ending.
Country: US
Technical: Eastmancolor/Cinemascope 95m
Director: Nicholas Ray
Cast: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher with a rare arterial disorder is prescribed cortisone but fails to keep to the required dosage and develops psychotic problems, ultimately trying to kill his own son.
Review:
An extraordinary project, clearly close to Mason's heart (he produced); it treats its serious medical issues with some frankness but fails to avoid descending into melodrama. It sits in that limbo between traditional Hollywood family fare and the new adult realism that increasingly characterised films from the fifties onwards, and consequently doesn't quite convince with its abruptly happy ending.