A Place in the Sun (1951)

Paramount Pictures
Director: George Stevens
Starring: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters

Honors
Academy Award for Best Director
Academy Award for Best Screenplay
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Black and White)
Academy Award for Best Costume Design
Academy Award for Best Editing
Academy Award for Best Score
Golden Globe for Best Picture-Drama
National Board of Review Award for Best Film
National Film Registry
#92 on AFI Top 100 (1998)

Director George Stevens transitioning to deep dramatic cinematic productions makes his intentions manifest fully in his highly decorated 1951 feature A Place in the Sun. A story the American dream gone wrong, the film brought together what was considered the most beautiful on-screen couple in Hollywood with stars Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor and co-starring the talented Shelley Winters in a role that changed her career. Nominated for nine Oscars, winner of six, and nearly universally considered one of the best films of the year proves how greatly praised this picture was and a quiet landmark picture in American cinema.

 

A Place in the Sun is a drama about a young man torn between his pregnant girlfriend and the elegant girl of his dreams. George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) is a charming young man who has wondered across the country to work in the factory of a wealthy distant relative to initiate a new promising life for himself. While working he meets and cultivates a secret relationship with shy factory girl Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters) that could blossom into something really special. As the two poor young people they find comfort and love in each other it all is interrupted when George is introduced to stunning socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) a begins to fall in love with her. News of Alice being pregnant with George’s child puts him on a tight place wrestling with wanting to be the good man and care for Alice and their unborn child, but his passion drives him to cultivate a life with Angela in her more exciting higher social circle. What follows is a series of bad decisions in effort to purge himself of the lowly Alice to be with the more extravagant Angela, ultimately leading to Alice’s death. Shortly thereafter George is arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder of Alice, costing him everything and closing on his walk to his execution.

 

This heartbreaking drama wonderfully encapsulates the title of its source material, 1925’s novel “An American Tragedy.” It is story that shares ideas of the American dream of meeting and falling in love with a person that complements you with a possible future together being interrupted when he encounters the image of the ideal girl. All this makes the young man rethink everything he thought wanted and trade it quickly for what he desires more in the moment until it becomes a disaster. Clift continues to mature a rising young leading man of Hollywood, Taylor is given her first real dramatic role of her adult career, while Shelley Winters grows beyond the boundaries of the actress she was fashioned to be by studios. Under the direction of George Stevens, it is constructed in a manner that pushed American cinema with its story of love, lust, murder, guilt, and ruin.

 

Previously adapted in 1931 by Josef Von Sternberg, the novel was itself inspired by the real-life murder of a pregnant factory girl in 1906, manifesting America’s fascination with tales of secret passions and murder. For A Place in the Sun the screenwriters and George Stevens tilt the scales of a drama by focusing more on the cultivation of the relationship between George and Angela while making the death of Alice appear to be an accident. This new framing of the story creates George to be less of a villain and more of tragic figure torn between love and duty. The result was a production that was one of the highest praised pictures of the year.

 

The subject matter of dealt with in A Place in the Sun consisted of many issues that at the time motion picture censors found unacceptable, which led to many rewordings or work arounds that creatively skirted the issues. Stevens captured heavy sexual passion by pushing in his camera to the actors faces making the subtleties of the performer much more dynamic as the emotions become much more intimate for even the audience to watch, especially between Clift and Taylor. For the sex scene between Clift and Winters Stevens built up the passion between then pans away the camera as the music builds, a cliché al these years later, but works remarkably better as it leaves the passion of the moment play within the mind of the viewers. Afterall, the viewers imagination can be far more dramatic than anything that could be shared on screen at that time. Abortion was a immense subject to avoid, therefore the script avoids it all together when the source material saw Alice consider pursuing that avenue when she received news of her pregnancy. In the picture it is only implied as Alice helplessly asks for help from the doctor to the frustration of the physician who shares little sorrow for her plight.

 

Starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters, the film’s leading cast all made names for themselves under this production. Already one of the business’ leading young stars with an Oscar nomination from his very first starring role, Clift utilized his method acting style in preparation for the picture, even hiring an acting coach to be on set with him during filming. This method clashed with Stevens whose controlling nature pushed back hindering the acting coach to affect his directions on set. It would be one Clift’s best performances and earned him a second Academy Award nomination. For Taylor, who was seventeen at the time of filming, she stated this was he first role she was really asked to act instead of simply being herself on screen. She was provided her first mature role sharing mature emotion of screen with Clift that captured the imagination of audiences. Then there was Shelley Winters, then manufactured as a blond bombshell in studio pictures, she pursued to break from that simple shell to be considered a serious actress. To land the role she auditioned with no makeup and in drab clothing to win over Stevens, coming away with Oscar nominated performance for herself in the process.

 

Both critically and finically A Place in the Sun was a success for Paramount Pictures. Its near universal acclaim won it a slew of awards including many “best picture” awards across the industry, except for the big one, the Academy Award, which went the much more lighthearted MGM feature An American in Paris. This is perhaps due in part with Hollywood’s largest and perhaps most politically driven fraternity was being far more conservative in its choices. George Stevens earned himself great praise in domestic and international circles with this film with even cinematic legend Charlie Chaplin considering A Place in the Sun “the greatest movie ever made about America” when he viewed it during a preview screening.

 

For Elizabeth Taylor, despite still being so young was quickly becoming a sex symbol in the industry with the help of her role as Angela painting her as the ideal American girl of social status that any man would be happy to catch. Her on screen chemistry with Montgomery Clift was so stirring gossip columnist wanted to believe the two were an actual couple off-screen. The two would happen to be very good personal friends for life and never a romantic couple due to Clift’s secret homosexuality. Winters’ on-screen person would be altered by her performance as Alice, being able define so well the ideal fragile romantic woman in many films in her career.

 

A Place in the Sun would swiftly become an America classic, continuing to be held in high regard despite losing some of its status with the continued evolution of motion picture dramas, leaving it but one of many along similar lines of subject matter. No doubt is A Place in the Sun a well-regarded work of filmmaking, acting, and execution in an age that had to toe the boarders of maturity in movies, impacting many audiences that viewed it.