Rebel Without a Cause

Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middleclass teenagers filmed in CinemaScope. The film stars James Dean, Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood.

Behind the opening credits, the film opens on a suburban Los Angeles street with teenager Jim Stark Dean drunkenly lying down on a sidewalk. He is arrested and taken to the juvenile division of the police station for plain drunkenness. At the station he meets John Plato Crawford Mineo, who was brought in for shooting a litter of puppies with his mothers gun, and Judy Wood, who was brought in for curfew violation she was wearing a bright red dress with matching lipstick and was mistaken for being a streetwalker. The three each separately reveal their innermost frustrations to officers all three of them suffer from problems at homeJim sets out for his first day at Dawson High School and again meets Judy who lives nearby waiting on the corner and offers her a ride. Seemingly unimpressed by Jim at first, she declines and sarcastically says, You know, I bet youre a real yoyo, and then is picked up by her friends, a gang of delinquents led by Buzz Gunderson Corey Allen. Arriving at school, Jim immediately gets in hot water for unknowingly stepping on the school insignia. While shunned by most of the student body, Jim befriends Plato, who comes to idolize him as a father figure. That afternoon, Jims class goes on a field trip to the Griffith Observatory, where they see a dramatic presentation of the bleak future of the Earth as the Sun goes through its red giant phase and post redgiant phase. As he walks out, Buzz and his gang slash one of Jims tires and then begin taunting him by clucking and calling him chicken, which is sure to set him off. When Jim asks Judy, revealed to be the property of Buzz, why she hangs around with them, Buzz pushes Jim away from her, then whips out a switchblade and challenges Jim to a knife fight. Having no knife, Jim refuses, so Buzz orders one of his gang to lend Jim his knife, but even then Jim still refuses. When Buzz again calls Jim chicken he goes off, and the two begin fighting, each one getting minor jabs on the other until Jim knocks

Source: Wikipedia