A Place In The Sun - The Movie.

Despite the presence of Winters and Taylor, Clift dominated the movie, and in his prime looked great, especially in a white T-shirt as a working man.

I have. There are great things in it, although it is so bizarre (and such a huge change from the novel) that the wife character dies accidentally right after the husband, who meant to kill her, decides not to at the last second instead of being murdered by him.

It's one of the Montgomery Clift's best performances, and is probably Elizabeth Taylor's best before "Virginia Woolf." Shelley Winters made herself famous by her performance, although as Pauline Kael pointed out, she plays her as so deeply annoying that you keep rooting for Clift to kill her.

The book and film were based on the Chester Gillette murder.

The fateful boat ride which seals Montgomery's character's fate.

It's an updated and very abridged version of the mammoth novel, which would make a great 30-hour mini-series. Clyde's background story, hinted at in the film, is a big and fascinating part of the book. I read the novel before I saw the film, and wanted more, although what remains of the story is well done.

In a very touching scene at the end of the movie Taylor's character Angela Vickers visits George Eastman in jail and tells him that despite everything that has happened she still loves him and will always love him. Beautiful and Taylor did it so well at a young age.

Elizabeth Taylor was at her most beautiful in this film and Ivanhoe (also made the same year).

Shocking for its depiction of premarital sex resulting in a pregnancy that the girl tries to get aborted.

I was watching it on TCM as well. Very good.

BUT the film they played after - The Subject was Roses - blew my mind.

Great movie with an incredible performance by Patricia Neal, an Oscar winning performance by Jack Albertson, and a young Martin Sheen in a very good performance.

LOVED IT!!!

THIS is chemistry. And star quality. And two of the most beautiful people to ever appear on the silver screen.

"Tell mama. Tell mama all."

That "Tell Mama, tell Mama all!" line makes me hoot every fucking time. What gorgeous party dress wearing, unmarried rich girl would refer to herself as "Mama?" That's some corn straight off the cob!

I've always found it funny that Shelley Winters said she had to glam down to play the role. She was a natural choice.

Worth checking out is an early 1930's version of the same book that uses the books title An American Tragedy. Its very good but I to prefer A Place in the Sun.

Director George Stevens didn't ask Elizabeth Taylor to test for the movie. He simply wanted someone who looked like a magazine girl (beautiful girl on the front of a magazine) to play the part of wealthy socialite Angela Vickers. But Taylor was great in the movie and delivered the acting goods.

The movie would have been better had he really killed her in the boat. Although maybe that's in the book. Wish I had known there was a book. I would have read it first.

I love film noir and this classic is a five star picture!

George Stevens changed the character's name from Clyde to George for the movie. Hmm, personal?

Film noir?

R17 Ok it’s not actually film noir but there are elements of it in it.

One more

The original of this, An American Tragedy was so perfect at explicating pre-code vs post code films. Loved both but visually APITS was better. Much more puritanical and Catholic but in line with the time it was made.

It was pretty scandalous for its time, I know my wife forbade our daughters from seeing it.

"BUT the film they played after - The Subject was Roses - blew my mind."

Martin Sheen was far better looking in his youth than either of his celebrity sons.

"Elizabeth Taylor was at her most beautiful in this film and Ivanhoe (also made the same year)."

I beg to differ

Kael was right: Shelley Winters is so whiny and annoying that you can't wait for her to die. Also, Clift and Taylor make such a beautiful couple you want to see them together.

[quote]Shelley Winters is so whiny and annoying that you can't wait for her to die.

That’s how I felt when I first saw it, too. He must’ve been pretty desperate to put his dick in that bucket of warm mop water.

Raymond Burr goes full ham here. That scenery must have been delicious.

I was MUCH more sympathetic, r25.....

Great movie that made me a lifelong fan of both Winters and Taylor. Two great, great performances.

"That "Tell Mama, tell Mama all!" line makes me hoot every fucking time. "

That line makes me cringe! Mothering is such a dick-wilter, and this is supposed to be a great romance, a passionate meeting of souls and yearning bodies, not whining and comforting.

Anyway! In her autobiography, Shelly Winters talked about having a massive crush on director George Stevens, and being unable to attract his attention with Elizabeth Taylor around. She liked Liz personally, but can you imagine being an ordinary-looking girl spending lots of time with Elizabeth Taylor? Yeah, Shelley's athletic pink taco had to take an unaccustomed break during the making of that movie.

Elizabeth Taylor at the pinnacle of her beauty. Like watching a Rembrandt painting in full motion, it's stunning color wrapping you up in awe.

Liz pulled off perhaps the most fearless dead faint ever captured on film in this movie. Sure, there was probably lots of padding under the rug, but it was still impressive.

Has Shelley Winters ever been appealing in anything? She is SO annoying and fat faced plain with the little curly ‘do atop her big head. Yes, she was a most unsympathetic character in this, and all I wanted was for the beautiful couple to live happily ever after, with this unfortunate girl GONE to the bottom of the lake.

Shelley Winters is appealing in A Double Life, where her character’s death is more regrettable.

Shelley Winters was attractive and quite the sex pot in her early years. She campaigned hard for the role of dowdy Alice in the movie but director George Stevens would have none of her and told her that she was all wrong for the part. One day she sat outside his office looking very plain, no make up, no nail polish, a frumpy dress, and looking anything but a movie star. George Stevens passed her several times before he finally recognized her and then realized that she had potential - he eventually gave her the unglamorous part of Alice and it put her on the map as a serious actress.

Shelley Winters received her first Oscar nomination for the role of the plain factory girl Alice Tripp in A Place In The Sun.

"Tell Mama. Tell Mama everything."

No heterosexual male would hear those whispered words close to his ear by a stunning young woman whom he's holding close and think "mothering," r29.

It would be more like, "Oh, MAMA!"

I thought Shelly winters was appealing and sexy in “Allie”

Miss Winters was fabulous as Charlotte Haze in "Lolita." Cha Cha Cha!

R38 She was as always great. Lovely James Mason's description of her in Lolita as 'the Haze cow'.

Monty was too pretty and too passive. I'm pretty sure he'd be turned into henpecked husband soon into the marriage and he'd go off seeking comfort somewhere. . . anywhere.

R40 Probably with another guy.

Shelley Winters was an actress, first rank! She's a much better actress than Liz. For a small taste of what a great actress can do, watch "The Chapman Report."

R30 to which movie are you referring? A Place in the Sun is Black & White.

Mrs. Rosen is fucking beloved on DL.

"Monty was too pretty and too passive. I'm pretty sure he'd be turned into henpecked husband soon into the marriage..."

Sure, if that George guy had done what he wanted and married the girl of his dreams and been brought into the family business, before long he'd have found some way to be unhappy about it all. That was not a guy who knew how to be happy. But he'd probably resent his wealthy in-law/employers more than his wife, and make her miserable by complaining about her parents all the time.

Anyway! It's my understanding that the Liz character is a bit of a departure from the book and the earlier film version ("An American Tragedy" [1931]). In the original story there's no grand romance with the rich girl and she's not staggeringly beautiful and sweet as well, she's just his path to a better life. He wants to marry her because he'll be better off if he does, she's nothing special and neither are his feelings for her. The casting of Liz Taylor changed the whole story, instead of am ambitious man wanting to marry his way up and eliminate any obstacles in his path, there's this swooning romance and an obstacle that everyone hopes will go away, audience included.

It's a great film and even better novel. (An American Tragedy, by T Dreiser)

I agree, Winters is annoying as can be- that's part of it. You pull for George and in doing so get a bit swamped just like him (he's totally swamped). And he's really innocent- but not- and neither is the viewer!

I don't think its a "great film" but it has terrific moments, fantastic music, and a very compelling archetype American class system narrative of violence and tragedy.

Elizabeth Taylor fell in love with Monty Clift (who wouldn't? He was stunningly gorgeous). She wanted to marry him. I wonder how she found out he was gay? Did they ever attempt to have sex? I'm thinking maybe they did and it didn't turn out too well. At any rate she was one of his fag hags for the rest of his life. He called her "Bessie Mae." She asked him why he called her that and he said that everybody else might call her Elizabeth but only he could call her Bessie Mae. But towards his life even Bessie Mae was distancing herself from him, he was so crazy. She did try to get him work in a film she was doing "Reflections in a Golden Eye", even offering to pay to have him insured (drug addicted, alcoholic and mentally ill, no movie studio would insure him). He ended up not playing the role; he died abruptly of a heart attack. Liz didn't attend his funeral. She said she was going to create some kind of charity in honor that would benefit heart disease, but that never happened. Poor Monty, abandoned by his beloved Bessie Mae.

I read his mother was a shallow, insecure, social climbing shrew. She was obsessed with being accepted by some family in Maryland or somewhere.

What I find fascinating about Winter's performance is that at first she seems really sweet and cute and you root for her and Clift to be a couple, then once he leaves for a week to go to the Eastman home Winter's performance becomes needy and nagging and unpleasant.

What I want to know is why they never showed what happened after they both fell in the water. I kept expecting a flashback during the trial to show if he tried to save her, just swam away, or assisted in her drowning. Does it say in the book?

I found it funny that Clift was tried, convicted, and executed in what felt like a week. That's some SWIFT justice.

R45 You scenario sounds like what happened to the Gyllenhall character in Brokeback Mountain.

I wonder how Monty would have played that role?

In the movie George Eastman said that he fell out of the opposite side of the boat than Alice Tripp which made it more difficult to try and help her but the scene shows them falling out of the boat on the same side.

Shelley Winters has a very simple gravemarker (even though Shelley Winters is not her real name).

Montgomery Clift's gravemarker is very non descript and plain.

Elizabeth Taylor's burial place - now that's Hollywood!

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor.

I wish 'A Place In The Sun' was filmed in color.

Good monochrome movies may be arty but I say they're flat.

Liz wanted to be buried beside Richard Burton, but understandably his wife prevented that from happening. So Liz had to settle for lavish tomb at Forest Lawn.

R58 Richard Burton's gravemarker is not very impressive - and it's turning all greenish with age. La Liz is better off in her fancy mausoleum.

^ He dishonoured his Jenkins family by taking the fake name 'Burton'.

According to IMDB, Burton took the stage name "Richard Burton" in tribute to his teacher Phillip Burton:

"He took his professional name from his schoolmaster and tutor, Philip Burton, who took the 17-year old Richard Jenkins and groomed him for success, both academically and as an actor. The two became so close, Burton attempted to adopt him as his son, but was prevented from doing so as he was too young, under the law. Nevertheless, Jenkins, who became known to the world as Richard Burton, considered Philip Burton his adopted father and honored him by taking on his surname."

As for his gravestone...well, Burton wouldn't have wanted anything fancy. I like the simplicity of a gravestone with just a person's name and the date of birth and death, especially for someone who was a well known figure in life.

Young Jenkins may have had talent but he drank it all away.

This film is incredibly depressing.

Winters is great. Clift is good. Liz is serviceable.

[quote]Elizabeth Taylor's burial place - now that's Hollywood!

At the opposite end of the hall is Michael Jackson, because of course.

R63 This film is depressing because it's from a story called 'An American Tragedy'.

It was dreamed up by a morbid German named Dreiser who specialised in heavy prose, liked stories about trauma ("Nigger Jeff" in1901) and liked stories about drowning (because he just missed traveling on the 'Titanic').

His other big story which got on screen was even more depressing—

His other big story to make to the screen was 403 ERROR?

That is depressing.

If I saw it, I've forgotten it. The book still haunts me, though.

Paramount released the depressing 'A Place In The Sun' in 1951.

In the following year they released Dreiser's other big story. From the clip you'll see that the Communist /Socialist Dreiser liked stories where everyone ends unhappily—

Everyone's remembering how pretty the two lovers were and how Shelley Winters resembled a drowning cow.

But no one is mentioning Monty's mother who made some long speeches which I didn't understand and have since forgotten.

Those long speeches which Monty's mother males are some nod the author's socialism.

The actress pictured above is Anne Revere was an active member of the American Communist Party and was blacklisted from the industry for 20 years.

Google tells us that the theme of this movie and 'Carrie' at R62 is how the Capitalist System grinds down stupid, naive or sexually adventurous people.

R36 But, at the same time you are discounting the fact that many straight men are consciously(or more likely subconsciously) looking for a woman to mother them. For many men the ideal woman is one that will mother them, yet they can still have sex with. just like many gay men want a "daddy."

^ Monty was a pretty, passive child.

He always played weaklings.

Not so, R72. Check out Red River, The Big Lift, From Here to Eternity, Wild River.

Some times Clift played men who turned out not to be as weak as they looked, R73.

Clift in A Place in the Sun erased all doubt in my mind about whether I was gay. What's going on in the last moment here?

ON TCM now.

George, on the way to the swanky party: "I was wondering why you invited me."

Angela: "Oh, just my reasons."

Elizabeth is so cute!

R75 He's blushing , just like—

A Place in the Sun needs a blu-ray from a restored negative, seriously.

A Place in the Sun needs some clever, subtle colorisation.

Black and white is SO deadly!

R79=Ted Turner

R27 You say Silvia Sidney/Saperstein) was more sympathetic.

Wiki said she was difficult and box office poison and I always thought there was some unknown, damaging secret about her private life being kept from us.

Just had a little thought. I always liked the bit where Monty ecomes back a wreck from his ill-fated boat ride, and Liz breathlessly embraces him, gushing that she missed him so much she hadn't eaten anything while he was gone. Then she adds, "Well, hardly anything." I wonder if it was a cute little line put in there by screenwriters who knew even back then that Liz liked to eat.

Also - somebody online wrote a synopsis that started out like, "George Eastman leaves Chicago and goes to California to connect with his wealthy family." I know the lake scenes were filmed at Tahoe, but I never thought of the film's local as being California. Always assumed New York State, like the real-life case. Anybody know?