Bigger Than Life

Bigger Than Life (Criterion #507).
1956 20th Century Fox.
Starring: James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Robert Simon, Christopher Olsen, Roland Winters, Jerry Mathers (uncredited)
Scene deleted: Marilyn Monroe
Director: Nicholas Ray
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James Mason is Ed Avery, a school teacher and family man who is secretly moonlighting as a cab driver to earn extra money to support his wife Lou (Rush) and son Richie (Olsen). Ed keeps pushing himself harder despite suffering increasingly painful spasms. Finally, Ed collapses, and while hospitalized, learns that he has been stricken by a rare arterial disease. The doctors have given him less than a year to live, but they do offer to provide him an experimental treatment with cortisone. At the time, cortisone was a new, and not fully tested as a drug.

Ed makes a full recovery and returns to work and family life, but things are not the same. For one thing, Ed has adopted a carefree attitude towards money. What's worse, Ed begins going through some very violent mood swings, where he finds himself talking down at just about everyone, family included. His closest friend, Wally Gibbs (Matthau), also finds himself on the receiving end of Ed's sudden outbursts. He soon comes to the conclusion that it's the cortisone at the root of the problem, and Ed is taking far more of the experimental drug than he has been prescribed, claiming that it's the only thing keeping him alive. Finally, one Sunday, Ed experiences a psychotic episode that threatens the safety of his family and best friend.

Bigger Than Life is a great look at drug addiction and psychological unhingement being brought into a 1950s suburban American home, which is probably why it was not a box office success at the time. Everyone needs to see this picture at least once. Highly, highly recommended.