Bigger then Life (1956)

Bigger then Life is a film of many layers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, who a year earlier had helmed the iconic teenage rebellion story Rebel Without a Cause, Bigger then Life is also a film about a rebellion of sorts. James Mason is cast against type, and arguable against logic, as Midwestern grade school teacher Ed Avery. He's a nice enough, affable man, if a bland one, a competent teacher whose major problem at the beginning of the film seems to be that he is underpaid. He keeps from his wife and roughly nine-year old son (Christopher Olson) the fact that he has taken a second job, as a dispatcher for a taxi service late afternoons and early evenings three days a week. His wife (Barbra Rush) vaguely suspects that he might be having an affair with an attractive fellow teacher played by Kipp Hamilton.

One night following a brief argument with his wife after a bridge party, Ed Avery collapses. His second job is not the only secret he has been keeping from his wife, he has also been experiencing unexplained pains in his heart for roughly six months. The doctors diagnose this as polyarteritis nodosa, a periodic swelling of the arteries. While previously generally fatal within a year of first symptoms, the medical community had of late being having some success in fighting this condition with the use of cortisone, a popular new wonder drug of the time. Only the cortisone pills cost two dollars a day, a heavy burden on a teachers salary, also it can have side effects.

Avery decides to go ahead and take the pills and for a while he feels fantastic, but then he slowly starts to have personality changes, manifesting in increasing delusions of grandeur and unpredictability. Avery's wife and best friend Wally (Walter Matthau in an early role) try to help but they are largely blocked by concerns of appearances for Ed, and the safety of his career, not to mention the possibility of even more medical costs. So mostly they try to manage his incidents on a case by case basis, this however will prove untenable.

Bigger then Life then is largely a film about refusing to deal with a problem, whether it be a medical condition, an unbalanced relationship, strange behavior, thwarted carer ambitions, prescription drug abuse, or the very specter of death itself. In short a rebellion against reality. The film has apt and often subtle commentary on class consciousness, the educational system, medicine, patriarchy, and a stifling sterile suburbia. A surprisingly uncomfortable movie in many places, it has the feel of films that wouldn't be made for another half century. It's not perfect, but it is observant and arguably a minor classic. Grade: B