East of Eden/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Enforced Method Acting: For the scene when a drunken Cal visits Abra at night, director Kazan actually had James Dean (having a low alcohol tolerance) buzzed on some chianti.
  • Throw It In: Cal was supposed to deck Adam after he rejects his present. When shooting, James Dean had the impulse to instead hug Raymond Massey. This became a moment of Enforced Method Acting for Massey who, unpracticed in improvisation, came across exactly as stiff and uncomfortable as Adam ought to be under the circumstances.
    • Dean also improvised the dance through the bean field.