Explore
 Lists  Reviews  Images  Update feed
Categories
MoviesTV ShowsMusicBooksGamesDVDs/Blu-RayPeopleArt & DesignPlacesWeb TV & PodcastsToys & CollectiblesComic Book SeriesBeautyAnimals   View more categories »
Listal logo

A Place in the Sun

Posted : 13 years, 6 months ago on 20 September 2010 08:18

Shot in 1949 but not released until 1951, A Place in the Sun was well worth the wait. When filming wrapped it would have competed against Sunset Blvd. and All About Eve for the Academy Awards glory, but in 1951 it competed against A Streetcar Named Desire and An American in Paris, oh what glorious years. This is actually the second adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy, but after the first one bombed a new name was sought out to ensure box office appeal. It worked.

A Place in the Sun tells the story of young man who meets a woman and falls in love, he then meets the love of his life, can’t shake the baggage and promises he made to the first woman. Clift is the outside man to a rich and affluent family in a small-town. His mother, an underused by strong Anne Revere, has forsaken her family’s riches for a life of poverty and charitable work. He has been raised with awareness to the plight of the poor and a heavy-handed testament towards religion. Shelley Winters is a part of his working class world. She is a worker in the factory that his uncle owns, they flirt and enjoy each other’s company. Elizabeth Taylor, always buzzing about as the party-ready rich-girl, is a glimpse into another world. Taylor’s extreme, almost painful beauty is enough to make anyone dump their partner and run off with her. He’s only human. But what to do about Winters? Especially once she returns demanding that he marries her since she is now pregnant with his child. What follows is harrowing.

Our sympathies and understandings are with each of these characters. That is thanks to the sublime performances from three of the screen’s most gifted actors. Montgomery Clift was an early variation of the ‘Method’ acting style. There was always something waifish, slightly effete about him. He uses that bruised and softened masculinity to great effect here. With his eyes capable of expressing so much, he didn’t need to rely on a lot of bodily pyrotechnics to sell the performance. His face could tell it all. That was a trick that he taught to Elizabeth Taylor. At only 18, she nails her first adult role. Their romantic scenes together are an intricate mating dance, each trying to entice the other more and more. It culminates in an erotically charged kiss.

But the real secret weapon is Shelley Winters, who forsakes her glamorous sex goddess image for a frumpy and dowdy role. It was a smart move on her part. Winters is one of the few actresses who could boast about a career boost after gaining weight and ceasing her blonde bombshell persona. Just look at the roles to come: Lolita, The Diary of Anne Frank, A Patch of Blue and her beloved turn in The Poseidon Adventure. She was a great actress who sometimes couldn’t pick a good part if it fell into her lap, but here is where she got her first notices. It’s still a great performance.

It has been said that Clift and director George Stevens argued bitterly about the ending of the film. Stevens wanted the film to end with Clift crying and in hysterics. Clift believed that any man in his character's situation would have been too dead emotionally to register anything on his face. The right person won. His face at the end is as great a final image as the ones in, say, Bonnie & Clyde, Queen Christina or The Godfather. His visage, pained and hypnotic, screams out “Fate, thou art a cruel mistress.”


0 comments, Reply to this entry