Ed Ranks the Filmography of James Dean

Squinty here is probably suffering from pinkeye.

James Dean was only in three films where he was credited (and five uncredited) before he decided to test the Pauli exclusion principle and determine if two or more identical fermion particles with a half-integer spin (such as the particles that make up, say, a Porsche 550 Spyder and a Ford Tudor) cannot occupy the same quantum state within a quantum system simultaneously.

Here are those eight James Dean films, ranked.

8. Sailor Beware - Ugh. Shit. A Jerry Lewis / Dean Martin movie? I'd probably rather shoot myself in the head than watch this 1952 film where James Dean plays an uncredited boxing trainer. Martin & Lewis aren't funny and the only thing sailors should really be aware of is herpes. 

7. Has Anybody Seen My Gal? - James Dean plays "Youth at Soda Fountain" in this godawful Rock Hudson film set in the 1920's which pretends that white people invented jazz music. Is there a missing girl in this film that someone is looking for? Nope. The title of the film is just the name of an old jazz song and has nothing to do with the plot whatsoever. What the hell, man? I should write a movie called "Murder at the Mansion of Dr. Sinclair," which features no murder, no mansion, and no doctor named Sinclair.

6. Trouble Along the Way - John Wayne plays a football coach tries to save a college about to go bankrupt by building up its athletic program. I haven't seen this movie, but I assume John Wayne never tries to find black athletes. Because, you know, he's a horrible racist. James Dean doesn't even get to play a young football player in this. He's just a spectator in the crowd. Oh, there's also a plot about John Wayne trying to get the custody of his daughter, social workers, blah blah.

5. Fixed Bayonets! - This was the first movie James Dean was ever in, playing the tiny uncredited role of "Doggie" near the end of the film. It's a war film set during the Korean War, although it stole lot points from the Henry Fonda WWII film Immortal Sergeant so much that the writers of that film were given screen credit for this one.

Now you're thinking about White Diamonds.

4. Giant - This was the film James Dean was making when he died. He completed all of his film work prior to his death, but someone had to fill in to dub some lines for him, what with him being splattered into chunky bits prior to the release of the film. He earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for playing ranch hand "Jett Rink" (a terrible character name), and so did his co-star, Rock Hudson (this was obviously a much better Hudson-Dean film than Has Anybody Seen My Gal?). Young, hot Elizabeth Taylor is in this too.

3. East of Eden - James Dean plays Caleb "Cal" Trask in this adaption of the John Steinbeck novel which is itself a quasi-retelling of the story of Cain and Abel (if they were Californians about to go off to World War I). James Dean nabbed his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for this film.

2. Rebel Without a Cause - Of James Dean's three films where he played a lead actor, if you had to guess which if any he'd received an Academy Award nomination for, you'd probably guess this one. Well, this is the only one of the three in which he didn't get nominated. But then again, the Academy Awards is always doing stupid stuff like that. Dean's most iconic role was, of course, not really recognized at its time as much as it is now. Dean plays Jim Stark, who as far as I know is not related to either Tony Stark, nor the Starks of Winterfell. But he is a moody teenager in this film about how life was tough for White, middle-class people in the 1950's because all those emotions and "parents just don't understand" generation gaps and everything. Yep, poor, poor White people in the 1950's. They had it so hard. They're just bound to get into knife fights at Griffith Observatory, play chicken in cars, and... uhh... I actually haven't seen this film all the way through, so I'm just guessing here.

1. Deadline – U.S.A.

This is a Film Noir Humphrey Bogart flick where he plays a crusading newspaper editor named "Ed." Basically, it's Spotlight but in 1952. So, for obvious reasons, this is the best film. Film Noir? Film Noir plus Bogart? Film Noir plus Bogart plus a character named Ed? Hell yeah!

It doesn't even matter that this ranking is about James Dean and James Dean is an inconsequential copyboy in this. BOGIE!