ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996 TAG: 9609270018
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: BOB THOMAS ASSOCIATED PRESS
The 1956 epic ``Giant'' might be a half-remembered film classic except for one tragic happenstance: James Dean was killed in a car crash when filming was almost completed.
The Dean connection and his subsequent elevation to icon added to the movie's reputation. Now Warner Bros. is re-releasing a fully restored version for a 40th anniversary celebration.
George Stevens directed the adaptation of Edna Ferber's sprawling novel about Texas, winning a best-director Oscar for 1956. ``Giant'' drew nine other nominations, including best picture, best actor nods for Dean and Rock Hudson and a nomination for Mercedes McCambridge for supporting actress. It became Warner's biggest moneymaker up to that time.
Alas, Hollywood studios are notorious for neglecting valuable assets, and ``Giant'' fell into disrepair. ``The original sound track was lost,'' says George Stevens Jr., who worked with his father during filming and editing, oversaw the film's restoration.
Stevens Jr. recalled that one of the closing scenes of ``Giant'' had brought Dean and the elder Stevens into an intense partnership.
``This became more dramatic because Jimmy was to die three weeks later. He had to do that drunken scene at the banquet, and he had difficulty with it. He asked Dad if he could work on it. Dad and Jimmy spent two nights until midnight working on that scene.
``Jimmy was 23 trying to play a man in his 50s. He asked Dad to act out the scene. It was a fascinating collaboration between a young man and an older man.
``Three weeks later, everyone was in the projection room; Dad always invited the actors to see the dailies. He never allowed phone calls, but the phone rang.
``Carroll Baker recalls the look on Dad's face. I was in the Air Force at the time, and she assumed that something had happened to me. But it was news that Jimmy had collided his Porsche Spider with a truck up on the highway.''
``Giant'' was Steven Sr.'s first independent film after a career of working for studios, starting at Hal Roach with Laurel and Hardy comedies and moving on to ``Swing Time'' (Astaire and Rogers), ``Gunga Din,'' ``Woman of the Year'' (Tracy-Hepburn), ``The More the Merrier,'' ``I Remember Mama,'' ``A Place in the Sun'' and ``Shane.''
Finally independent of studio control, Stevens made all the major decisions for ``Giant.'' He tried something different in casting the leads.
``This was a picture that spanned generations,'' Stevens Jr. points out, ``and you would usually get actors and `age them down' for the young parts of the picture; the older parts are more to their age.
``In this case, Dad chose two 23-year-olds (Dean and Elizabeth Taylor) and a 28-year-old (Hudson). The film started at their actual ages, and they aged upward.''
The reissued film, Stevens says, takes advantage of some recent technology.
``In some respects, it improves on the original. When `Giant' was released, it was not in the Technicolor process. Except for the damaged portions, which are dupes, the fidelity of the picture is probably better than it ever was,'' he says.
Unlike ``Lawrence of Arabia,'' ``The Wild Bunch'' and other restored classics, ``Giant'' contains no added footage that had been discarded in the editing process.
``There would have been great rumblings from heaven if I were to mess with my father's picture,'' says Stevens.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB