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Nov 2, 2026
Bigger Than Life
Summary
If Dog Day Afternoon is Network Jr., then Nicholas Ray’s 1956 Bigger Than Life is The Shining’s little brother. Ed Avery (James Mason), like Jack Torrence, unlocks a part of him that he finds liberating and intoxicating but which his family finds terrifying. There are many similarities, yet there’s an important difference: the ghosts in The Shining bring out something in Jack that was always there, but the cortisone in Bigger Than Life seems to cause Ed to become a sinister version of himself. Does evil lurk within us, ready to escape, or do we invite it into our lives?
Bumper music by John Deley.
Fans of James Mason will want to read Madeline King Porter’s new biography, James Mason: The Movie Star Hollywood Forgot.
Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at fifteenminutefilm@gmail.com with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Mike Takla is on substack at The Grumbler’s Almanac.
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Daniel Moran
Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches writing and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics. You can find his writing and other podcasts about books and films on Pages and Frames.
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