Today’s pic is a variation on the familiar promotional shot of Timothy manhandling James Dean in Elia Kazan‘s East of Eden (1955). This one, less commonly seen, appears to have been taken a few seconds later (or earlier, it’s hard to tell), with Tim deep in shadow.

Tim described shooting this scene in “The Highways of Heaven”, his article on his friendship with Dean that appeared in Movie Stars Parade magazine in 1957. “In our next fight sequence, I was supposed to pummel Jimmy as he ran through the hallway after leaving his mother’s office. I grabbed hold of his hair; we got into a struggle, I hit him and almost caved in the side of his face. He never said anything. I couldn’t understand the guy. Any other actor would have called the cops. But not Jimmy. That’s the way he wanted it – real.” Whether or not Dean truly had, as has long been rumored, a masochistic streak, he certainly was the kind of actor who preferred to keep things real.