Editing Rebel Without a Cause (section)

==Production==
Warner Brothers had bought the rights to [[Robert M. Lindner|Lindner's]] book, intending to use the title for a film. Attempts to create a film version in the late 1940s eventually ended without a film or even a full script being produced. When [[Marlon Brando]] did a five-minute [[screen test]] for the studio in 1947, he was given fragments of one of the partial scripts. However, Brando was not auditioning for ''Rebel Without a Cause'', and there was no offer of any part made by the studio. The film, as it later appeared, was the result of a totally new script written in the 1950s that had nothing to do with the Brando test. The screen test is included on a 2006 special edition [[DVD]] of the 1951 film ''[[A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 film)|A Streetcar Named Desire]]''.

According to a biography of Natalie Wood, she almost did not get the role of Judy because Nicholas Ray thought that she did not fit the role of the wild teen character. While on a night out with friends, she was in a car accident. Upon hearing this, Ray rushed to the hospital. While in delirium, Wood overheard the doctor murmuring and calling her a "goddamn juvenile delinquent"; she soon yelled to Ray, "Did you hear what he called me, Nick?! He called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent! ''Now'' do I get the part?!"<ref name=Finstead2009>{{cite book |last=Finstead |first=Susan |title=Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood |page=176 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ShQPhimir3EC&pg=PA176 |year=2009 |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=9780307428660 |access-date=July 11, 2014}} Latest Wood biography.</ref><ref name=Higgins2011>{{cite journal |last=Higgins |first=Bill |title=How Natalie Wood Seduced Her Way Into 'Rebel Without a Cause' |url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/natalie-wood-death-rebel-without-266053 |journal=The Hollywood Reporter |date=24 November 2011 |access-date=July 11, 2014}} Tells of the quote being from 1974 interview.</ref>

Dawson High School, the school in the film, was actually [[Santa Monica High School]], located in [[Santa Monica, California]].

Exterior scenes at the abandoned mansion to which the characters retreat were filmed at the [[William O. Jenkins House]], previously used in the film ''[[Sunset Boulevard (film)|Sunset Boulevard]]'' (1950). It was demolished just two years after filming.{{sfn|Frascella|Weisel|2005|p=[{{GBurl|id=B92ZdPN9ut8C|PA155}} 155]}}

[[Irving Shulman]], who adapted Nicholas Ray's initial film story into the screenplay, had considered changing the name of James Dean's character to Herman Deville, according to Jurgen Muller's ''Movies of the '50s''. He originally had written a number of scenes that were shot and later cut from the final version of the film. According to an AFI interview with Stewart Stern, with whom Shulman worked on the screenplay, one of the scenes was thought to be too emotionally provocative to be included in the final print of the film. It portrayed the character of Jim Stark inebriated to the point of belligerence screaming at a car in the parking lot "It's a little jeep jeep! Little jeep, jeep!" The scene was considered unproductive to the story's progression by head editor [[William H. Ziegler]] and ultimately was cut. In 2006, members of the [[Film at Lincoln Center|Film Society of Lincoln Center]] petitioned to have the scene printed and archived for historical preservation.

Sal Mineo would later note in a 1972 interview that the character of Plato Crawford was intended to have been gay. Speaking to [[Boze Hadleigh]], he said, "[It m]akes sense [that Plato was killed off]: he was, in a way, the first gay teenager in films. You watch it now, you ''know'' he had the hots for James Dean. You watch it now, and everyone knows about Jimmy['s bisexuality], so it's like he had the hots for Natalie [Wood] and me. Ergo, I had to be bumped off, out of the way."<ref name="salmineo1972">{{cite web |url=http://www.salmineo.com/news/inter_hadleigh.html |title=Boze Hadleigh interview with Sal Mineo, 1972 |access-date=November 26, 2021 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924093740/http://www.salmineo.com/news/inter_hadleigh.html |archive-date=September 24, 2015 }}</ref>

The film was in production from March 28 to May 26, 1955. When production began, Warner Bros. considered it a B-movie project, and Ray used black-and-white film stock. When [[Jack L. Warner]] realized James Dean was a rising star and a hot property, filming was switched to color stock, and many scenes had to be reshot in color. It was shot in the widescreen [[CinemaScope]] format, which had been introduced two years previously. With its densely expressive images, the film has been called a "landmark ... a quantum leap forward in the artistic and technical evolution of a format."<ref name="ASC">{{cite journal|title=DVD Playback: Rebel Without a Cause (1955)|journal=American Cinematographer|date=October 2005|volume=86|issue=10}}</ref>

The 1949 Mercury two-door sedan James Dean drove in the movie is part of the permanent collection at the [[National Automobile Museum]] in Reno, Nevada.