Bigger Than Life (1956) poster & wallpaper
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James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Robert F. Simon, Christopher Olsen ... see more see more... , Roland Winters , Rusty Lane , Rachel Stephens , Kipp Hamilton , Betty Caulfield , Virginia Carroll , Renny McEvoy , Billy Jones , Lee Aaker , Jerry Mathers , Portland Mason , Natalie Masters , Richard Collier , Lewis Charles , Gus Schilling , Alex Frazer , Mary Carver , Eugenia Paul , Nan Dolan , William Schallert

Based on an article in the New Yorker, Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life stars James Mason (who also produced the film) as elementary school teacher Ed Avery, a thoughtful, gentle man, with a loving wif... read more read more...e, Lou (Barbara Rush), and a young son, Richie (Christopher Olsen), who loves him. Avery is successful and well liked in his community, but he is over-extended in his pursuit of the American dream -- he secretly works a second job to earn extra money, and doesn't dare break stride, despite the increasingly painful physical spasms that he suffers. He collapses one day, and the doctors inform him that he suffers from an arterial disease that will probably give him less than a year to live. But they also offer him one hope, with treatment using cortisone, which was then a new, not-fully-tested drug. Avery makes a seemingly full recovery and returns to work, but it soon becomes clear that he's not the same -- he has a new, cavalier attitude toward money, and then Lou becomes alarmed over his expressions of rage over seemingly insignificant annoyances. He starts expressing himself in grand, exalted terms, first to Lou and then to his colleagues at school, including his closest friend, Wally Gibbs (Walter Matthau). And matters only get worse when Wally determines that it is the cortisone -- which Ed has been taking in far greater doses than prescribed -- that is making him act this way. And his obsession w ith forcing Richie to live up to his full potential soon turns into a much darker fixation. Director Ray later offered regret over having used cortisone by name, as it was still not standard treatment and its benefits and drawbacks weren't known. But this did lend the movie a verisimilitude that was essential for what appeal it did hold for audiences. (Seven years later, screenwriter William Read Woodfield would incorporate Bigger Than Life's cortisone plot device into his script for the Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea episode "Mutiny". Bigger Than Life's more immediate problem at the time lay in its broader plot -- with a story that brought drug addiction and fact-based psychological unhingement into a suburban American setting, it was a daring subject for its time, for which audiences were unprepared in 1956. It was also one of a group of offbeat pictures that Mason produced as well as starred in. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

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83% liked it

1,386 ratings

Critics

93% liked it

27 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 35 min.

Directed by: Nicholas Ray

Release Date: August 2, 1956

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DVD Release Date: March 23, 2010

Stats: 171 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (171)

  • brooklynspo
    January 4, 2011
    brooklynspo
    I liked it. Actually, I really, really liked it. Give me more. Damn it, I need MORE!
  • rubystevens
    December 26, 2010
    rubystevens
    wow. james mason is seriously frightening as he slowly loses his grip on reality due to prescription drug addiction. a great look under the idyllic facade of the 50's
  • erika250
    August 7, 2010
    erika250
    this film made me get n the edge of my seat.
  • mjgildea
    October 6, 2008
    mjgildea
    Bigger Than Life is a movie I've looked forward to for a few years since seeing Martin Scorsese's Journey Through American Movies. Seeing James Mason in the throes of psychosis about to murder his son and claiming GOD WAS WRONG for not having Abraham kill Isaac was enough to add ... read morethis to my must see list. Bigger Than Life is a hell of a lot like a Douglas Sirk movie with less saturated colors and slightly less melodrama. Mason is great as the All-American dad who goes nuts after getting addicted to cortisone and Walter Matthau as his plot device/friend. As good a job as Mason did in his decent into madness, Nicolas Ray's direction was the real standout here. Worth the ride if you can get your hands on it.
  • gator681
    January 4, 2009
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]In "Bigger than Life," there are two things that Ed Avery(James Mason), a schoolteacher, is hiding from his wife Lou(Barbara Rush). The first is that he moonlights a couple of nights a week at a taxi company as a dispatcher. He lies because he feels that she ... read moremight think this is below somebody who once attended the prestigious Boston Latin School. The second is the pain he has been feeling for the past six months until he collapses one night. Doctors are at a loss for what is ailing him but eventually diagnose a rare ailment that can be kept at bay with cortisone, a hormone, prescribed four times a day.[/font]

    [font=Century Gothic]Directed by Nicholas Ray, "Bigger than Life" is an old fashioned melodrama that has less to do with addiction to prescribed medications than it does as a warning against playing god, especially to scientists. Ed is a perfectly humble man until the cortisone treatment which is trumpeted as a miracle cure. After he begins abusing the drug, he develops a psychosis and suddenly his old life is no longer good enough for him. Of special attention is the climax of the film and what sets it off.[/font]
  • fb208103125
    March 10, 2011
    fb208103125
    Amazing symbolic and the case of psychosis gets to insane levels nearing the end of the film making tension build throughout the movie. Not the easiest film to watch but one definitely worth watching! Highly Recommended!
  • michaelcorleone
    December 16, 2010
    michaelcorleone
    An unnerving, fervently cinematic masterpiece from Nicholas Ray.
  • divinetrash
    October 17, 2011
    divinetrash
    The film is a striking portrait of the rampant paranoia running through peoples mind in the 1950s, but James Mason's powerful performance as a man reaching breaking point and Barbara Rush as the put-upon wife can a strike a chord with audiences anytime today.
  • AlaineB
    December 30, 2010
    AlaineB
    Cortisone addiction in the 50s. James Mason as the addicted one. Hard to watch if you know any addicted people since this is raw. Good one.
  • kingmob6
    July 28, 2010
    kingmob6
    A loving teacher and father becomes dangerously addicted to medication in this fun little melodrama/cautionary tale from the 50's.

    Great stuff, well worth a look, called to mind for me stuff like Reefer Madness.

    Give it a rental.

View All Bigger Than Life (1956) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Variety Staff
October 23, 2007
Variety Staff, Variety

James Mason has picked a powerful subject for his first 20th-Fox production and delivers it with quite a bit of dramatic distinction in carrying out the supervisory duties and as the male lead. Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum
October 23, 2007
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

It's hard to think of another Hollywood picture with more to say about the sheer awfulness of 'normal' American family life during the 50s. Full Review

Bosley Crowther
June 24, 2006
Bosley Crowther, New York Times

Those who remember the creeping terror and eeriness of Mr. Roueché's real-life yarn will be sorry to learn that there is little terror or eeriness in the film. Full Review

Sarah Boslaugh
September 15, 2011
Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl

...an amazing critique of conventional 1950s morality... Full Review

Nick Schager
June 8, 2011
Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness

A masterful melodrama whose aesthetic beauty works in service of a stinging social critique. Full Review

Philip Martin
June 1, 2010
Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

...is a dark cautionary tale about suburban ennui that feels like an unacknowledged antecedent to the AMC TV series Breaking Bad. Full Review

Kelly Vance
May 5, 2010
Kelly Vance, East Bay Express

The epitome of a social problem film, in which the "crisis of conformism" bursts open in every single tension-producing frame. Full Review

Matthew Sorrento
April 21, 2010
Matthew Sorrento, Film Threat

[D]rop the 'Reefer' and call this film 'Cortisone Madness.' Full Review

Gabe Leibowitz
April 18, 2010
Gabe Leibowitz, Film and Felt

It's all horrifying, and its eerie resemblance to the McCarthy-esque paranoia and fear that swept the nation makes Bigger Than Life extremely powerful. Full Review

James Kendrick
April 14, 2010
James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk

a surprisingly expressionistic horrorshow, a frightening and indelible portrait of the nuclear family turned into a hellish emotional torture chamber Full Review

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