Watch: Bigger Than Life 1956 123movies, Full Movie Online – Schoolteacher and family man Ed Avery, who’s been suffering bouts of severe pain and even blackouts, is hospitalized with what’s diagnosed as a rare inflammation of the arteries. Told by doctors that he probably has only months to live, Ed agrees to an experimental treatment: doses of the hormone cortisone. Ed makes a remarkable recovery, and returns home to his wife, Lou, and their son, Richie. He must keep taking cortisone tablets regularly to prevent a recurrence of his illness. But the “miracle” cure turns into its own nightmare as Ed starts to abuse the tablets, causing him to experience increasingly wild mood swings..
Plot: When a friendly, successful suburban teacher and father is prescribed cortisone for a painful, possibly fatal affliction, he grows dangerously addicted to the experimental drug, resulting in his transformation into a psychotic and ultimately violent household despot.
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7.5/10 Votes: 7,626 | |
90% | RottenTomatoes | |
N/A | MetaCritic | |
N/A Votes: 126 Popularity: 6.728 | TMDB |
Terrifying
This is an excellent movie. I saw it once, and I never wish to see it again. I grew up in a household like this, only there was never a solution to my father’s mania, depression, and incredible anger.About all I can say about Mr Mason’s performance, and that of Ms Rush, is that they could have been my parents, and I could have been that kid. It never got to the point where I was offered up like Isaac, but the rest of it was right, right down to the speech where the father condemns all children because they’re ignorant. I’d heard that one. His wife was helpless; they all are.
I do not know where the screenwriters got their dialog, but I hope they didn’t learn it the way I did. As it happened, I was terrified and transfixed while watching it, only calming down after the father realized that something was wrong, and vowed to correct it, and there was a means of correcting it.
When the movie was over–I don’t know if I watched it in the theater or on TV–I had to go home, where there was still rage, and no solution to it. I would have been nine years old.
There was a time that I wanted my parents to see that movie, in the hope that they’d realize that this was how they acted, and stop it.
It never happened. They were divorced years later. My father was angry and crazy right up to the day he died three years ago. My mother, in her nursing home in Cleveland, maintains that I must be making it all up.
M Kinsler
The Father
Although referring to cortisone,”Bigger than life” is rayesque to the core.Davey (“Run for cover” )Plato and Jim (“rebel without a cause”)and the Chinese girl (“55 days at Peking”) were in search of a father.Even the Jeff/Wes relationship in “lusty men” is of the same kind.Cortisone is just an alibi.The subject of the film is the paternal power .And this father is also a teacher!The PTA meeting is revealing!
Richie has got a father.But there’s a crack in the mirror (Ed’s broken reflection is the key to the movie).Little by little,we feel there’s something irrational in his attitude.Buying clothes ,It’s very natural !Playing football with your sonny,is a right thing to do to be good friends.But ,thanks to James Mason’s sensational performance,we feel ill-at-ease,even scared .This fear will culminate in the arithmetic lesson where Mason ‘s shadow on the wall is terrifying (when Barbara Rush enters the room,see her tiny shadow !it’s a lesson in directing a movie).And being a father is not far from being a God .After hearing again in the church the prodigal son story ,it’s only natural in Ed’s case to feel like Abraham .(His final dream -which we do not see- is extraordinary).
It might be a warning against pills ,drugs and all that stuff.But I rather think it’s a warning against “overeducation”.As a teacher,I heard about a student’s father who spent a WHOLE Saturday afternoon to make sure his unfortunate son did understand the multiples .
Superb performance by James Mason (the scene when his face suddenly appears in the mirror as his boy is searching his room is really spooky),good support from Barbara Rush,Walter Matthau and young Christopher Olsen.
Original Language en
Runtime 1 hr 35 min (95 min), 1 hr 31 min (91 min) (FMC Library Print)
Budget 0
Revenue 0
Status Released
Rated Not Rated
Genre Drama
Director Nicholas Ray
Writer Cyril Hume, Richard Maibaum, Burton Roueche
Actors James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau
Country United States
Awards 2 nominations
Production Company N/A
Website N/A
Sound Mix Mono (optical prints) (Westrex Recording System), 4-Track Stereo (magnetic prints) (Westrex Recording System)
Aspect Ratio 2.55 : 1
Camera Bausch & Lomb Lenses (uncredited)
Laboratory DeLuxe (color)
Film Length 2,580 m (France), 2,784 m
Negative Format 35 mm
Cinematographic Process CinemaScope (as A CinemaScope Picture)
Printed Film Format 35 mm