# Place in the Sun, A (1951)

### reviewed by
Brian Koller

    A Place in the Sun (1951)

    Grade: 73

"A Place in the Sun" was an enormous commercial and critical success. Starring sensitive Montgomery Clift, beautiful young Elizabeth Taylor, and featuring a tragic love triangle as the story, the film had substantial appeal, particularly to women.

George (Clift) has been scraping out a living as an unskilled laborer. He visits his well-to-do uncle, who gives him a job in his bathing suit factory. George starts his new career at the bottom, meeting frumpy Alice (Shelley Winters) as a fellow drudge on the assembly line. Despite a company rule against fraternization, they see each other. Alice becomes pregnant, and presses him for a marriage that would mire him deeper in poverty.

Meanwhile, George has begun dating boss's daughter and brunette goddess Angela (Taylor). George has also been promised a promotion to management. However, Alice is in the way of his plans. George decides to take her boating... and you guess the rest.

"A Place in the Sun" is based on Theodore Dreiser's novel "An American Tragedy", which was filmed in 1931. Not having seen this movie, I compare "Place" with the 1927 classic "Sunrise", which also features a love triangle, a boating accident, and second thoughts from the protagonist. Clift's character is as gentle and earnest as ever, but has some of the ambition and duplicity of his role from "The Heiress". Winters, who played a dynamic romantic lead in "Winchester '73" from the year before (1950), is depicted as poor, drab, clinging and self-pitying. The contrast between her and dazzling rich girl Taylor could not be greater.

Perhaps Taylor's breathless character isn't fully credible. She falls too quickly and deeply in love with Clift, and remains loyal to him to the end, even paying him a visit on death row. Also, Raymond Burr acts both as police detective and prosecutor (it must be quite a small town).

High production values and a good script and cast paid off at the Academy Awards as well as the box office. "A Place in the Sun" was nominated for Best Picture and won six Oscars, including Best Director (George Stevens), Screenplay (Michael Wilson, Harry Brown) and Black & White Cinematography (William C. Mellor). Clift and Winters were also nominated for Best Actor and Actress.

kollers@mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html

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