A Place In The Sun (1951)

The ambitious working class nephew (Montgomery Clift) of a wealthy manufacturer (Herbert Heyes) is given a job in his Uncle's factory. He begins an affair with one of the factory workers (Shelley Winters) but it's a beautiful socialite (Elizabeth Taylor) he falls in love with. Based on the novel AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser and directed by George Stevens (GIANT). Greatly admired in its time, the film's reputation is slowly receding. There was great consternation when it (as a "serious" movie) lost a best picture Oscar to AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (a mere musical) but today, it's PARIS that holds up, not SUN. Stevens' film, while not without its merits, comes across as rather ponderous and heavy handed. Then there's the casting. Clift is excellent and Taylor is charming but one of the movie's themes, that of an ambitious working class guy deserting the poor working girl in favor of a woman who will bring him more social acceptance in his seeking of the American Dream is lost because of the casting. My God, who wouldn't prefer Taylor in the full flush of her teenage beauty to the shrill Winters? Pauline Kael suggested the film might have worked better if Taylor and Winters switched parts and I'm inclined to agree. The love scene between Clift and Taylor on the terrace remains one of the great love scenes in movies. The excellent Oscar winning score is by Franz Waxman. With Anne Revere, Raymond Burr, Fred Clark, Keefe Brasselle, Frieda Inescort, Ian Wolfe and Kathryn Givney.