Three movies from that impeccable icon of cool, James Dean, are collected here.

EAST OF EDEN: The strong screen adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel features the debut of James Dean. Like Cain with Abel, a black sheep competes with his brother for his father's love--with tragic results.

GIANT: Edna Ferber's best-selling family saga was the source of Stevens' sprawling epic, which stars Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean, in his last film appearance. When Texas cattleman Bick Benedict (Hudson) goes to Virginia in the early 1920s to buy a prize stallion, he falls in love with Leslie Lynnton (Taylor), an aristocratic, independent-minded beauty, and they quickly marry. He takes her back to Reata, his 600,000-acre ranch, where sister Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), the family matriarch, does her best to make Leslie feel unwelcome. Leslie is appalled by the second-class status accorded to women and racist attitudes toward the local Mexicans, neither of which seem to bother her husband. Out of compassion, she befriends surly ranch hand Jett Rink (James Dean), who comes to worship her from afar, envying Bick for both his wealth and his wife. He strikes oil on land bequeathed to him by the deceased Luz and his wealth and power grow apace. As the years pass, the bewildered Bick often finds his children thwarting his wishes and criticizing his beliefs, pushing the millionaire to question his values for the first time in his life. The film's outstanding cast, which also features Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo, Carroll Baker, Earl Holliman, and Chill Wills, inject vitality into a project that occasionally suffers from longueurs.

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE: The age-old theme of teenage violence and delinquency is given distinctive insight by the well-cast Dean-Wood-Mineo trio. Perhaps the best teen-age drama of the 1950s. Academy Award Nominations: Best Supporting Actor--Sal Mineo, Best Supporting Actress--Natalie Wood, Best Motion Picture Story.

DVD Features:

6-Disc Set
Region 1
Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.85
Audio:
Dolby Digital Mono - English
Dolby Digital Stereo - French
Dolby Surround 5.1 English
Disc 1: EAST OF EDEN (SPECIAL EDITION)
Disc 2: EAST OF EDEN (SPECIAL EDITION)
Disc 3: REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (SPECIAL EDITION)
Disc 4: REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (SPECIAL EDITION)
Disc 5: GIANT (SPECIAL EDITION)
Disc 6: GIANT (SPECIAL EDITION)

Distributor Notes: Giant is a movie of huge scale and grandeur in which three generations of land-rich Texans love, swagger, connive and clash in a saga of family strife, racial bigotry and conflict between cattle barons and newly rich oil tycoons. It's also one of the most beloved works of director George Stevens, who won an Academy Award for this film, one of 10 Oscar nominations the film earned. In Rebel Without A Cause, one of the most influential performances in movie history, James Dean plays the new kid in town whose loneliness, frustration and anger mirrored those of postwar teens - and still reverberate 50 years later. Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo were Academy Award nominees for their achingly true performances. Director Nicholas Ray was also an Oscar nominee for this landmark chosen as one of the all-time Top 100 American Film by the American Film Institute. Based on John Steinbeck's novel and directed by Elia Kazan, East of Eden is the first of three major films that make up James Dean's movie legacy. The 24-year-old idol-to-be plays Cal, a wayward Salinas Valley youth who vies for the affection of his hardened father (Raymond Massey) with his favored brother Aron (Richard Davalos). Playing off the haunting sensitivity of Julie Harris, Dean's performance earned one of the film's four Academy Award nominations. Among the movie's stellar performances, Jo Van Fleet won the Oscar as Best Supporting Actress.

Source: Warner Home Video

James Dean: American actor, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)

"[REBEL] is Dean's greatest performance. Director Nicholas Ray allows him free rein to explore the complex personality of Jim Stark."