Customer Reviews

A Place in the Sun (Region 2)

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I haven't read Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" on which this 1951 film is based, but I can see how the word "tragedy" is used in its classic sense - that of a character who meets disaster because of a tragic flaw. So even though purists might see "A Place in the Sun" as a romanticized version of Dreiser's tale, I certainly found it serious enough for me.

Directed by George Stevens, the film opens with Montgomery Cliff thumbing a ride. He's going to the town where his rich uncle owns a mill. He's awkward among his affluent relatives and happy to get a job, any job. And so even though he has to start at the bottom, packing bathing suits into boxes, he's aware of his future opportunities. Shelly Winters is cast as a factory girl he starts romancing. But then, his fortunes suddenly turn, he's invited to more and more upscale social events, and he falls in love with Elizabeth Taylor. The plot thickens as Shelly Winters announces her pregnancy and Montgomery Cliff finds himself trapped. The consequences are horrific as we watch his dreams all crash down around him.

I was captured by the story right from the beginning in a screenplay that kept the tension mounting and never let up. I identified with Montgomery cliff and found myself sympathic to his plight. He plays a complex character and has a lot of moral choices to make. He sweats, he shakes, he cringes, his eyes fill with tears. Certainly, he was one of the finest actors of his time and his performance is magnificent. Elizabeth Taylor was just 17 years old then and sure was a beauty. As she explains in an interview as part of the special features on the DVD, this was her first serious role. "Before that," she says jokingly, "all my leading men were either dogs or horses." She also tells us that Montgomery Cliff, with whom she maintained a long friendship with until his death at the age of 45, was her first movie kiss. "I had only just had my first 'real' off-screen kiss just two weeks before," she says. Shelly Winters talks about her role too. She wanted the role of the factory girl badly. However, at the time, she was typecast as a glamour queen. And so she dressed in an extremely plain way when she went for her screen test. She sat demurely in the office and George Stevens didn't even recognize her.

I loved this film. It had everything. Romance. High drama. Great acting. Moral choices. And I also loved the "behind the scenes" special feature that was on the DVD. "A Place in the Sun" might have been made more than 50 years ago, but the theme is universal and as valid today as the day it was written. I therefore give it my highest recommendation. It's simply wonderful.

Theodore Drieser was among America's earliest realistic authors, and his massive 1925 AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY, loosely based on real events, was a best-selling shocker filled with premarital sex, abortion issues, and social failures. The novel was filmed in 1931--and Drieser was so outraged that he successfully sued Paramount to force reshoots and a new edit. The result did not please Drieser, Paramount, or the movie-going public, and when censorship began to rear its head both the novel and movie were quietly shelved.

By the late 1940s, however, censorship began to relax, and A PLACE IN THE SUN was among the first films to take advantage of the fact. Unlike the 1931 film, producers did not attempt to film the whole of the novel; they instead focused on the second half. The result was singularly powerful.

George Eastman (Montgomery Cliff) is the poor relation of a wealthy family--and when seeks aid from them he is given a menial job in the factory, where he becomes intimate with factory worker Alice (Shelly Winters.) But when George is suddenly promoted he begins to enter the world of his dreams--and it includes glamorous socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor.) And now only the commonplace and unexpectedly pregnant Alice stands between him and all that he has ever desired.

The script veers toward excess more than once, but director George Stevens and his extraordinary cast carry the film to unexpectedly powerful effect. Previously known as a sex-bomb, Shelly Winters fought hard for the role of Alice and with it gives the first in the series of truly brilliant performances for which she would become so well known. Elizabeth Taylor was one of the leading beauties of the screen, and her acting chops had been in clear evidence for some time before A PLACE IN THE SUN went before the cameras, but it here that she first truly showed what she could do with serious drama; she is flawless. And then there is Montgomery Cliff.

Although Marlon Brando and James Dean made "Method Acting" a household term, Cliff was very much of the same school, and he broke new ground in film several years before either Brando or Dean made the screen. And A PLACE IN THE SUN shows Cliff at his finest, offering a truly amazing, powerful performance as the highly-driven but morally weak George Eastman, stumbling over ever trip-wire society can place in his path. It is a truly devastating performance, gut-wrenchingly painful in honesty, offered without a trace of artifice in evidence.

As the film progresses the moral issues evolve in several very unexpected ways, most particularly as they reference degrees of guilt, premeditation, and at what point intent becomes the same as fact. In the process A PLACE IN THE SUN develops a highly disconcerting "there but for the grace of God go I" quality. I think this particularly true for those among us who can look back upon what might best be called "youthful indiscretions;" we are left to wonder what choices we might have faced if things had been only very slightly different in our lives.

The DVD print is not remastered, but it is pristine, and it comes with a slight but interesting bonus package that includes interviews with the surviving stars. Strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Coincidentally, I saw this film within a week after I read Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby for the first of several times. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, I had so many dreams, fantasies, ambitions, etc. and thus, years later, immediately identified with George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) as well as with Jay Gatsby, so different in many ways but both hungering for acceptance and respectability, thereby to enhance their self-image. George Stevens' brilliant direction was rewarded with an Academy Award. Working with a screenplay based on Theodore Dreiser's bloated novel An American Tragedy, Stevens elicited from both Clift and Elizabeth Taylor (Angela Vickers) perhaps their finest performances on film. Both are ideally cast as star cross'd lovers, so near and yet so far from what both so passionately desire. Members of the supporting cast are outstanding, notably Shelley Winters (Alice Tripp), Anne Revere (Hannah Eastman), Sheppard Strudwick (Anthony Vickers), and Raymond Burr (Frank Marlowe). Young Eastman is torn between accepting essentially a blue-collar life (with some prospect for a white collar eventually) and doing whatever is necessary to join the society of affluence in which his beloved Angela is so comfortable.

All decisions have consequences and some decisions have tragic consequences. George's decision to gratify himself sexually with Alice one rainy evening creates a complication for which he is ill-prepared. Eventually, he is held accountable for her death (even if viewed as an accident) because, at that point, he cannot endure a life with her nor a life without Angela. George may not deliberately eliminate Alice from his life but he certainly has no interest whatsoever in having any further contact with her. He is convicted of intent. This film received six Academy Awards: including director Stevens, costume designer Edith Head, and composer Franz Waxman, although An American in Paris was selected as best film in what must have been a close vote. The other nominees were Decision before Dawn, Quo Vadis, and A Streetcar Named Desire.

When I recently saw this film again, I was reminded of one of Fitzgerald's short stories, "Winter Dreams," in which a young man very much like George Eastman yearns to improve his station in life. For so many young men and women, the American Dream can become the American Tragedy. For whatever reasons, they are destroyed...or so brutalized that their lives become a nightmare from which they can never awaken.

Among the top 100 films of all time this gem from the early fifties solely belongs on it. George Stevens has fashioned a memorable and stirring adaptation of the novel by Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy." Montgomery Clift stands out as the poor and wretched nephew of a wealthy businessman. He slowly starts to climb the ladder of success when he sees the lovely Elizabeth Taylor, who was 19 at the time. However, he has also become involved with the maidish Shelley Winters and their one night together results in a pregnancy. With his future suddenly becoming brighter and more promising, the bitter truth from Winters threatens to bring him down and destroy him. However one cannot fool the way life works, and it all comes back to seek revenge upon him for what he does to secure his place in the sun of high society. Six Oscars went to this masterpiece for its brilliant direction from Stevens, screenplay adaptation, cinematography which looks creepy and then blossoming when appropriate, Franz Waxman's moody music score, Edith Head's incredible costume designs for Taylor, and film editing, which keeps the film moving and never letting up interest. However audiences and critics were in an uproar in 1951 when it lost Best Picture to a musical that year. This film's content was ahead of its time in some aspects for it deals with pregnancy, lust, a one night stand, and cheating your way up the ladder of success. There are few films that can equal the powerful impact of emotion this film evokes for the characters. You can't help but feel sorry for Winters when she becomes victimized and lied to by Clift, thus leaving her to fend for herself while he goes on in the carnival of a life of sheer luxury. The most terrifying and pulse-pounding scene takes place on the lake, where tragedy and shock occur. The photography adds tension and fear, you can sense that danger is waiting somewhere. One of the greatest films ever and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a genuine film buff of the classics and this film is an eternal landmark in the world of movies.

This is a must see. "A Place in the Sun" is based on Dreiser's tale "An American Tragedy". Poor George Eastman moves to the city to work for rich relatives. Makes the mistake of getting involved with a poor girl who works beside him in the factory. After getting her pregnant, his eye wanders to the beautiful, and seemingly unattainable rich girl. It seems the only way out of an unescapable future of a loveless marriage is an "accidental" death to the girl he has gotten in trouble. At first, it seems his plan might just work, but of course it all unravels, and so does his bright future with the rich and beautiful people, and all of its trappings. A very powerful movie, with a memorable cast. Shelley Winters, cast against type as the poor frumpy factory girl, Montgomery Clift as the poor relation looking for a way to get his foot in the door, and move up in the world, and of course Elizabeth Taylor as the beautiful young girl of George Eastman's dreams and desires...She was gorgeous...Read the book, and see the movie. I highly recommend both.

This magnificent film, undoubtedly my vote for Greatest of All Time, is deserving of a 5 star rating. However, this review is based upon the film as a DVD special edition - AS I FIND REVIEWS SUCH AS THIS TO BE MOST BENEFICIAL TO DVD PURCHASERS. I found that of all the features the only thing of true value was the documentary/ interview montage "Filmmakers Who Knew Him". This referring to a collation of interviews about George Stevens, the master behind the film. These interviews have been revealed before albeit in edited form in the 80s doco "George Stevens - A Filmmaker's Journey". BUT for the uninitiated, Alan Pakula/Warren Beatty/Fred Zinnemann are among those who shed light on the directorial style of George Stevens.

There is a half hour piece concerning the participants still alive, such as the filmmaker's son G Stevens Jr, Ivan Moffett associate producer, and the two leading ladies. But this is simply well made diatribe.

As for the much anticipated commentary - well it should have been insightful, compelling, revealing. Instead, it trod a well worn path providing information of use only for those inexperienced in DVD commentary. AFTER ALL we have come to accept a certain standard, and I certainly think reviewers need to consider more the actual value of commentaries, rather than simply assuming that they are great bonuses. (Ever heard "US Marshalls" commentary with director Stuart Baird - worst on offer!). BUT this is not bad mouthing for its own sake - the same commentators did an outstanding ***** star effort with George Stevens' "Shane" DVD - a masterpiece, and I personally feel the greatest Western of all time (I'm sure people are howling over that call!!).

As for technical quality, the picture stability was somewhat shaky at times. No doubt a fault of the original negative that it was mastered from. But for a definitive DVD version, a fan has the right to expect better. ALL IN ALL, it is a worthy disc to own if you happen to love the film as I do. Alas though, if you love the work of George Stevens, and wish to own one of his masterpieces in DVD, with added value of surpassing quality (ie commentary by George Stevens Jr & assoc producer Ivan Moffett), then the best bet is SHANE. A FINAL THOUGHT - who could ever forget the lingering kiss between Taylor and Clift, which dissolves into an over the shoulder reverse shot????? Incredible motion picture, for all its artifice and melodrama, it still retains a spellbinding one of a kind humanity, sincerity, and TRUTH.

Thanks to this movie, I'm reading "An American Tragedy," and the prose--900 small-print pages begging for an editor--is driving me crazy. Dreiser's omniscient, overly busy narrator not only insists on both telling us and showing us what each character is thinking but moralizes at every opportunity. And despite the novel's reputation as an example of modern "realism," it's as redundant a form of melodrama as I've ever encountered: not only is every emotion spelled out but it's spelled out again and again.

The film, on the other hand, is a narrative of infinite suggestion and undeniable emotional power. George Stevens' fluid, lyrical camera embraces his primary characters, and the faces of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor tell us practically all we need to know about their feelings. It might seem like this film is worlds apart from "Swing Time," the 1930's Astaire-Rogers film also directed by Stevens. But both films have in common a grace and choreography, an attention to the musical and the poetic that enables them to rise above their sources and their times. George Eastman's tragedy (Clyde Griffith's, in the novel) resonates as memorably as Franz Waxman's haunting score, which somehow suggests that George's fatal passion may have been worth it after all. Credit Stevens for producing one of the screen's most enduring romantic dramas and, for my money, coaxing out of Clift and Taylor their best screen performances.

[Since writing the above, I've finished Part III of Dreiser's novel, the longest section and one that is only briefly referenced in the film. It's brilliant writing (in spite of the style), and tough, disturbing reading, placing the reader in the turbulent stream of Clyde's consciousness. Clyde is far less sympathetically portrayed than in the film with respect to his moral guilt, but virtually all American institutions are equally on trial, the church and its representatives no less than Clyde. And there is no Angela! (Only an impersonal, unsigned note from her that makes Clyde's seem like the most pitiful folly in all American literature.)

"A Place in the Sun" tells the story of George Eastman (Montgomery Clift), a poor relation who goes to work in his rich uncle's factory. He starts at the bottom level, working the production line, and gets involved romantically and sexually with co-worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), all the while yearning for the unattainable - the gorgeous Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). However, by the time he is able to finally be with Angela, his relationship with Alice interferes with his plans.

The film is based on the novel "An American Tragedy", written by Theodore Dreiser in 1925. Elizabeth Taylor, who was only 17 at the time, was cast as Angela Vickers, the beautiful and rich love interest of George Eastman (Montgomery Clift). Shelley Winters is Alice Tripp, the woman who becomes a burden to Eastman, an obstacle to his love for Angela and her way of life. Stevens was reticent at first to cast Winters in the dowdy role; at the time she was known for portraying glamorous types or sexpots. She convinced Stevens to cast her by showing up in his office for her appointment with him dressed for the part, sitting silently when he came out and didn't recognize her for several minutes as he glanced around his outer office at the actresses waiting to see him.

Raymond Burr, best known for his TV role as Perry Mason, plays a Perry Mason of sorts in the film: the prosecuting attorney, Frank Marlowe.

This was the first of three films that Taylor and Clift made together; and they became instant friends upon meeting for the first time for the making of "A Place in the Sun". The chemistry between the two is evident, although Clift was in real life homosexual. They remained close friends until his death in 1966, at age 45, from a heart attack. Taylor has remarked that her first kiss with Clift in the film was the second time she had ever been actually kissed - the first time was two weeks before filming started.

Director Stevens decided to take the story and set it in post-war times instead of in the 1920's, when the novel takes place, to take the atmosphere of wartime out of the feel of the story. The lushly filmed lake scenes have the look of an Ansel Adams photograph. Color would have been superfluous. The masterful use of shadows is evident throughout, and Stevens' several excruciatingly tight closeups of Taylor and Clift together serve to highlight her beauty and the chemistry between the two lead actors, heightening the sense of danger and romance.

"A Place in the Sun" was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning six, including Best Director for George Stevens.

Note:
Dreiser's novel was based on an actual murder case of 1906 - the case of Chester Gillette.

Excellent movie about the tragic consequences of pushing too hard to obtain the american dream. Montgomery Clift gives a realistic performance as the poor kid who makes it to the top at a high price. Liz Taylor is believable as the rich beauty who falls in love with Clift, and Shelly Winters is especially memorable as the poor factory worker who gets shoved aside by Clift after he meets Taylor. Beautifully made movie that makes you really get into the mind and heart of its protagonists. Highly Recommended.

Originally filmed in 1931, Theodore Dreiser's landmark novel "An American Tragedy" came back to the screen in 1951, directed by George Stevens under the new title of A PLACE IN THE SUN, with an inspired cast. This moving romance captured the emotions of post-war audiences with it's unflinching, painful depiction of one man's struggle to achieve the American dream, and the fates which conspire against him.

Poor, unassuming George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) leaves his strict, religious mother (Anne Revere) and heads for the big city to work in his rich uncle's bathing suit factory. There, despite a rule which forbids relationships between employees, he falls into a dalliance with dowdy factory girl Alice Tripp (Academy Award-nominee Shelley Winters). Despite Alice's eventual pregnancy, George doesn't see a lasting future with her; instead his affections lie with Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), the dazzling young debutante who offers George the social status and family approval he craves. Still, Alice lingers in the wings, with a secret that will eventually need to be revealed. Just how will George manage to negotiate his way through this delicate situation, and what tragedies will envelope the love triangle?...

Montgomery Clift was and still is the perfect actor to play George (in the original Dreiser novel, the character's name was Clyde). Elizabeth Taylor, in her first truly adult role away from her almer-mater studio MGM, glows as Angela, a character who might have become too vapid or uninteresting in the hands of a lesser actress. Shelley Winters fought hard to win the role of Alice, and in doing so broke away from the sexpot blonde characters she had endured as a contract star for Universal-International. For some great backstage tales about the making of A PLACE IN THE SUN, check out Shelley Winters' entertaining autobiography "Shelley (Also Known as Shirley)".

Still as hard-hitting and heartbreaking today as when it was first released more than fifty years ago, A PLACE IN THE SUN deserves a proud place in your classic movie collection. A no-brainer purchase.