Bigger Than Life (1956) (1956)
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93% of critics liked it
(27 reviews) -
83% of users liked it
(1,458 ratings)
Based on an article in the New Yorker, Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life stars James Mason (who also produced the film) as elementary school teacher Ed Avery, a thoughtful, gentle man, with a loving wife, Lou (Barbara Rush), and a young son, Richie (Christopher Olsen), who loves him. Avery is… More Based on an article in the New Yorker, Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life stars James Mason (who also produced the film) as elementary school teacher Ed Avery, a thoughtful, gentle man, with a loving wife, Lou (Barbara Rush), and a young son, Richie (Christopher Olsen), who loves him. Avery is successful and well liked in his community, but he is over-extended in his pursuit of the American dream -- he secretly works a second job to earn extra money, and doesn't dare break stride, despite the increasingly painful physical spasms that he suffers. He collapses one day, and the doctors inform him that he suffers from an arterial disease that will probably give him less than a year to live. But they also offer him one hope, with treatment using cortisone, which was then a new, not-fully-tested drug. Avery makes a seemingly full recovery and returns to work, but it soon becomes clear that he's not the same -- he has a new, cavalier attitude toward money, and then Lou becomes alarmed over his expressions of rage over seemingly insignificant annoyances. He starts expressing himself in grand, exalted terms, first to Lou and then to his colleagues at school, including his closest friend, Wally Gibbs (Walter Matthau). And matters only get worse when Wally determines that it is the cortisone -- which Ed has been taking in far greater doses than prescribed -- that is making him act this way. And his obsession w ith forcing Richie to live up to his full potential soon turns into a much darker fixation. Director Ray later offered regret over having used cortisone by name, as it was still not standard treatment and its benefits and drawbacks weren't known. But this did lend the movie a verisimilitude that was essential for what appeal it did hold for audiences. (Seven years later, screenwriter William Read Woodfield would incorporate Bigger Than Life's cortisone plot device into his script for the Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea episode "Mutiny". Bigger Than Life's more immediate problem at the time lay in its broader plot -- with a story that brought drug addiction and fact-based psychological unhingement into a suburban American setting, it was a daring subject for its time, for which audiences were unprepared in 1956. It was also one of a group of offbeat pictures that Mason produced as well as starred in. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
- Directed By
- Nicholas Ray
- Genres
- Drama
Unrated,
- In Theaters
- Aug 2, 1956 Wide
Critic Reviews
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David Fear, Time Out New York
The suits wanted a torn-from-the-headlines melodrama; what they got was the director at his expressionistic best, subverting the suburban fantasy and leaving nothing but tattered gray flannel and scorched earth in his wake.
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Variety Staff, Variety
James Mason has picked a powerful subject for his first 20th-Fox production and delivers it with quite a bit of dramatic distinction in carrying out the supervisory duties and as the male lead.
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Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
It's hard to think of another Hollywood picture with more to say about the sheer awfulness of 'normal' American family life during the 50s.
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Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Those who remember the creeping terror and eeriness of Mr. Roueché's real-life yarn will be sorry to learn that there is little terror or eeriness in the film.
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, Time Out
This is Rebel Without a Cause for the grown-up world.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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James Mason
as Ed Avery
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Barbara Rush
as Mrs. Lou Avery
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Walter Matthau
as Wally Gibbs
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Robert F. Simon
as Dr. Norton
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Christopher Olsen
as Richie Avery
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Roland Winters
as Dr. Rurich
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Rusty Lane
as La Porte
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Rachel Stephens
as Nurse
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Kipp Hamilton
as Pat Wade
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Betty Caulfield
as Mrs. La Porte
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Virginia Carroll
as Mrs. Jones
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Renny McEvoy
as Mr. Jones
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Billy Jones
as Mr. Byron
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Lee Aaker
as Joe
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Jerry Mathers
as Freddie
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Portland Mason
as Nancy
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Natalie Masters
as Mrs Tyndal
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Richard Collier
as Milkman
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Lewis Charles
as Dr MacLennan
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Gus Schilling
as Druggist
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Alex Frazer
as Clergyman
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Mary Carver
as Saleslady
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Eugenia Paul
as Saleslady
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Nan Dolan
as Dr. Norton's Nurse
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William Schallert
as Pharmacist
