19 février 2019

ENG - "A startling discovery" - Himes and James Dean

The following comment (to From Cast the first stone to Yesterday Will Make you Cry) was left anonymously (what a pity!) on this blog.


"The 1952 version under the title Cast The First Stone was a paperback tucked on to James Dean's bookshelf. The fact that Jack Warner, head of Warner Brother Studios in the early 1950s, had both Dean under contract  for his major and most iconic films (Rebel Without a CauseEast of EdenGiant) and had Himes under contract briefly as a screenwriter and then fired him because he was black is another shocking fact lost to history. The relationship between Jim and Dido in Himes' novel is also very resonant of the relationship between Jim Starck (Dean) and the character of Plato, played by Sal Mineo in Rebel.

Could there be a connection/influence that few people have ever realized?"