July 1, 2010

The ghost of James Dean...

So James Franco is returning as "Franco" in a couple of General Hospital episodes. In this episode, he is a bum with a toy monkey and a "will entertain for food" sign for some reason.


The use of the monkey is notable due to Franco's connection with James Dean. Of course Franco actually portrayed Dean on a 2001 made-for-television movie, a fact hilariously referred to in this video of him and his brother rehearsing a scene from the 1955 Dean film Rebel Without a Cause (at around 1:40):


Anyway, I was just wondering who came up with the idea of Franco's character, "Franco," using the toy monkey as the prop. Any fan of James Dean or Rebel Without a Cause will remember the opening sequence in which Dean's character is shown playing with a similar toy monkey among the garbage of a street gutter:

2 comments:

dana said...

I've never been a big General Hopsipal fan, but when the hell was he on a soap opera??

Chris said...

dana - yes, it's odd he's working on a soap opera. It's such an unorthodox thing for an actor in his position to do, I think it's sort of cool.