Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... digging around in James Dean's trunk.

It's Tearing Christopher Abbott Apart

I forgot that this was happening, but actress and writer Zoe Kazan is taking a page from her esteemed Hollywood heritage and writing the script for a new limited-series adaptation for Netflix of John Steinbeck's classic novel East of Eden, which her Grandpa Elia himself turned into a legendary star-making vehicle for one Mr. James Dean back in 1955. Florence Pugh's been attached for some time but the reason I'm reminded of this project's existence is this week's news that one Christopher Abbott will be tackling the role of Adam Trask in the series. Which is not the role that James Dean played, by the way... 

... but the role played by Raymond Massey, aka Jimmy Dean's character's father. The 1955 film only adapted the last part of the epic book, the part about Adam and Cathy's children Cal (Dean) and Aron (Richard Davalos), so yes this is a pretty smart idea for a limited series adaptation -- there's an entire three-quarters of the book laying there to be told! Although I do know there was also a 1981 three-part miniseries that starred, amongst others, the ridiculously handsome Hart Bochner...

... and that I would love to see. Anybody seen that? 

Good Morning, Pride Month

Let's kick this one off right.

Good Morning, World

James Dean would have turned 92 today.

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1956

It is Election Day here in the US and I am desperately trying to distract myself -- I mean I have real work I should be doing, but I can't focus on that. But it's easy enough to focus on one of our "Siri Says" series posts, they ask very little of me while also being extremely time consuming at the same time. It's perfect! It's been a few months since the last one of these that I did, as film festivals began eating up my time, but as I've made clear a few times this year we have very few years left to choose from at this point! Only a handful, and today's pick -- the movies of the year 1956, which the post's title gave away -- brings us to the end of the 1950s. We've now chosen our favorite movies from every year that decade! 

Here are my favorite movies of 1950

Here are my favorite movies of 1951

Here are my favorite movies of 1952

Here are my favorite movies of 1953

Here are my favorite movies of 1954

Here are my favorite movies of 1955

Here are my favorite movies of 1957

Here are my favorite movies of 1958

Here are my favorite movies of 1959

It's a pretty great decade for movies, right? One of my favorites mainly because you had Brando and Dean and Clift and Newman and Rock Hudson and Steve Reeves (good lord), and you had two of my favorite film directors -- that'd be Sir Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk -- hitting their strides. Hitch alone has faves in like half of the years from 1950s, and both of them make today's list twice, including a runner-up each.

One other weird side-note about this year in the movies -- an inordinate number of movie titles were very long this year. Around the World in 80 Days, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Girl Can't Help It, The Teahouse of the August Moon, Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Best Things in Life Are Free.... and those are just a handful. I feel retroactive pain for all of the people who worked putting titles up onto the movie theater marques in 1956, truly. Anyway let's get to it...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1956

Written on the Wind

(dir. Douglas Sirk)

-- released on December 25th 1956 --

The Bad Seed

(dir. Mervyn LeRoy)

-- released on September 12th 1956 --

Forbidden Planet

(dir. Fred M. Wilcox)

-- released on March 23rd 1956 --

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

(dir. Don Siegel)

-- released on February 5th 1956 --

The Man Who Knew Too Much

(dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

-- released on May 16th 1956 --

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Runners-up: Giant (dir. George Stevens), The Searchers (dir. John Ford), Somebody Up There Likes Me (dir. Robert Wise), The Ten Commandments (dir. Cecile B. DeMille), High Society (dir. Charles Walters), Ilya Muromets (dir. Aleksandr Ptushko), Bigger Than Life (dir. Nicholas Ray)...

... The Red Balloon (dir. Albert Lamorisse), The Girl Can't Help It (dir. Frank Tashlin), Friendly Persuasion (dir. William Wyler), Rodan (dir. Ishirō Honda), Baby Doll (dir. Elia Kazan), There's Always Tomorrow (dir. Sirk), The Wrong Man (dir. Hitchcock)

Never seen: The King and I (dir. Walter Lang), Love Me Tender (dir. Robert D. Webb), Around the World in 80 Days (dir. Michael Anderson), War and Peace (dir. King Vidor), The Rainmaker (dir. Joseph Anthony), Bus Stop (dir. Joshua Logan), Lust For Life (dir. Vincente Minnelli), Bob Le Flambeur (dir. Melville), Carousel (dir. Henry King), The Killing (dir. Kubrick)

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What are your favorite movies of 1956?

Which is Hotter?

In just nine years we'll be celebrating the centennial of James Dean -- of course we'll be celebrating from our post-apocalyptic lava-pits, but celebrating nonetheless! -- who was born on February 8th, 1931. Today though we hit the non-event of his 91 year anniversary, so we'll go with a simple silly little poll in the legend's honor.

bike trails

I Quit Smoking Thirteen Years Ago Today

Lucky thirteen, y'all! That's how that thing works, right? Well maybe I'm no numerologist but what I do know is I tossed cigarettes in the trash on May 5th 2008 and I ain't never been back, and that's a thing I celebrate here on MNPP every single year every May 5th by posting enormous galleries of extremely attractive actors doing the exact thing that I no longer do. It keeps me honest.

Well if not honest... it keeps me something, anyway. Last year, as with many aspects of last year, we hit a snag though -- because I was quarantined at home over this anniversary I'd been separated from the big folder of photos that I'd keep gathering up to post for 2020. And so last year's post was admittedly a bit slack. Well...

... this year's post makes up for it, and it makes up for it then some. I've got all the photos I'd gathered for 2020 plus all the photos I've gathered in 2021, and it's gonna give y'all a hell of a nicotine buzz. If you don't die of cancer before you're finished with this post then I haven't done my job! I make light (get it) but seriously... don't smoke. You don't look at good as these guys do doing it, I promise you. Well unless you're actually KJ Apa reading this, in which case... call me, KJ Apa. You can blow smoke (or anything) on me any time. And with that, let's hit the jump for dozens more...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from... 

East of Eden (1955)

Cal: I've been jealous all my life. Jealous, I couldn't even 

stand it. Tonight, I even tried to buy your love, but now 

I don't want it anymore... I can't use it anymore. 

I don't want any kind of love anymore. It doesn't pay off.

James Dean was born 90 years ago today.

Good Morning, World

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Like James Dean there I would prefer to still be asleep -- alas! We can't all be James Dean. In case you're wondering that's a photograph of Jimmy sleeping on an airplane -- I didn't stumble upon a secret cache of him-in-bed-with-hot-dudes pictures, sadly. No idea who his seat partner is but they sure do look cozy, don't they? Good friends, no doubt. James Dean was born on this day in 1931 -- feel free to scan through our archives for more of him. ETA thanks to commenter Joe K. for offering up some info on the friend...

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It's been brought to my attention that the "friend" is probably composer Leonard Rosenman, and now I am obsessed with pics of them together pic.twitter.com/yqrW4h8PCx

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 8, 2019

Good Morning, World

.

Yeah. That.

Good Morning, World

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James Dean, who stood to pee, 

was born on this day in 1931.

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Today's Mood

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The angst, it is so exquisite.

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5 Off My Head - Siri Says 1955

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It's Tuesday and you know what that means - it means the voices are talking to me again! Specifically just one from my phone, and only when asked to. So, not nearly the David Berkowitz situation you all feared. (Give it time.) Anyway I asked Siri for a number between 1 and 100 and this week she gave me 55 - so The Movies of 1955 it is. And what a great time for the movies! Alfred Hitchcock was churning 'em out, two of James Dean's three total movies were out that year, and Marilyn Monroe was scratching that itch. But which, pray-tell, of that year's fine crop were my faves? Including one of my favorite movies of any year ever, even? Well let's take a look-see...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1955

The Night of the Hunter

(dir. Charles Laughton)

-- released on September 29th, 1955 -

To Catch a Thief

(dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

-- released on August 3rd, 1955 -

Les diaboliques

(dir.  Henri-Georges Clouzot)

-- released on November 21st, 1955 -

All That Heaven Allows

(dir. Douglas Sirk)

-- released on December 25th, 1955 -

Summertime

(dir. David Lean)

-- released on June 21st, 1955 -

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Runners-up: The Seven Year Itch (dir. Billy Wilder)
 East of Eden (dir. Elia Kazan)

Rebel Without a Cause (dir. Nicholas Ray)

The Trouble With Harry (dir. Alfred Hitchcock) 

The Ladykillers (dir. Alexander Mackendrick)

Never seen: Night and Fog (dir. Alain Resnais), Ordet (dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer), Bad Day at Black Rock (dir. John Sturges), Kiss Me Deadly (dir. Robert Aldrich), Killer's Kiss (dir. Kubrick), Marty (dir. Delbert Mann), Smiles of a Summer Night (dir. Bergman)

What are your favorite movies of 1955?

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Pic of the Day

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Right after I posted our previous post wishing East of Eden actress Julie Harris a happy birthday alongside a bunch of pictures of James Dean and Richard Davalos being hot n' homoerotic around her I stumbled across the above picture of the two being even gayer than all that. (click to embiggen) I mean, that flute! The shot is apparently from a scene cut from East of Eden because it went too far with the gay innuendo and, well, duh. 

And I imagine it goes alongside the screen-test video we posted back in March of the two actors wrestling in bed -- click here to see all that blessed monkey business. And now I feel like watching East of Eden again! Oh and click over to the Tumblr where I just posted a few pictures of these two not seen here, because they were quite the pair off-screen as well.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

you can learn from:

East of Eden (1955)

Abra: Mr. Trask, it's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world. Don't ask me - even if you could - how I know that. I just know it. It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel. And that's the way Cal has always felt, Mr. Trask. All his life! Maybe you didn't mean it that way - but it's true. You never gave him your love. You never asked for his. You never asked him for one thing.

The great Julie Harris was born on this day in 1925.

Today's Mood

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Good Morning, World

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RIP to East of Eden actor Richard Davalos, who played James Dean's brother in the film, and gave us this the second gayest screen-test that James Dean was ever involved in. (The first gayest being the one of Dean & Paul Newman flirting, of course.)

We've posted this video a couple of times before but we've never giffed the good bits, so let's do that this morning in Davalos' honor. Hit the jump for the video itself alongside all the brotherly wrasslin' and huggin' and what not that you can handle...

Which is Hotter?

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I've had the 60th anniversary of James Dean's death marked in my calendar for a couple of years now but here we are and the day arrived and I almost totally spaced. As expressed in my earlier mood post, I'm a friggin zombie today. But this post isn't about me (okay technically all of the posts here are about me but you know what I mean), it's about 60 years of Dead James Dean and the legend that his too-young demise birthed. Dean is the Baby Bear of Brooding Fifties Movie Stars -- Clift was too sensitive and Brando too rough, but James Dean was jussssst right. Honestly I prefer the other two for their tipping of the scales whichever way, but the legend of Jim endures the strongest all these years later, so...

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