A Place In The Sun

They say there’s a place for everything and that couldn’t be truer than with the picture I’m here to talk about.

Truth be told, there’s no other picture I hold in higher regard than this one, A Place In The Sun, directed by George Stevens and based on the epic novel An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. That’s it’s also a remake, goes to show that some things are better the second time round as well.

Described as a vivid reflection of Middle America’s attitude towards money and social status, it’s the timeless story of a poor boy, George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) who starts work at his rich uncle’s factory.

He meets Alice (Shelley Winters), and despite the factory’s rules about co-workers dating, they strike up a romance. While at a party at his uncle’s house, he then meets the rich socialite Angel Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) and it’s immediately clear they share a chemistry that the dowdy Alice can’t compare to. Angela, along with her lifestyle, is what George has always dreamed about.

As he falls deeply in love with her, there’s bad news when Alice reveals she’s pregnant, not only that, but she expects George to marry her. Feeling trapped and wanting only to be with Angela, he plans to get rid of Alice during a boating trip on a secluded lake. It’s a story that doesn’t end well for either of its main characters and it’s melodrama at its best, most tragic and beautiful.

Stevens immortalised on film two of the most beautiful faces to have ever graced the big screen and this is not more evident anywhere else in the film than the party scene. Filmed entirely with six-inch lenses, this one scene alone has been described as luscious, sensuous, romantic, electrifying and even erotic.

James Dean would visit the cinema over and over just to see those luminous faces looming at him, soaking up Clift’s method acting and Taylor’s natural instincts as the scene played out.

At age 29, Clift’s career was going from strength to strength. Having come from Broadway, he had already impressed audiences and critics with his performance in The Search (1948) and starred alongside John Wayne in Red River (1948) and Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949).

Taylor, at age 18, was just graduating from being a child star and this was her first real adult role, although this wasn’t to be her first on-screen kiss. Paired with Clift for the first of their three movies together, they sizzled in every scene, but this particular one is just perfection. We look at it and there’s nothing else before or since then that compares.

It’s Friday night and Angela has invited George to a lavish party. He’s dressed in a tuxedo and she’s wearing a long gown with a white mink which she removes once they’re inside, revealing her bare shoulders. They’re the most beautiful people in the room. They walk past the buffet table and onto the dancefloor where the dreamy music from the score by Franz Waxman is playing. They embrace and this is where it begins.

We fade into a close-up of Taylor’s face as her head rests on Clift’s shoulder, holding him, and he holding her. Her eyes look down and then up, off into the distance. We then fade into Clift’s close-up, he’s distant. Taylor turns her face and looks at him and they stop dancing.

Their eyes soak in each other’s as Stevens captures them both from the side now. Their lines are about to become a little more frantic as they’re about to throw them at each other.

They go back to dancing, he presses his nose to her forehead, she smiles and presses him to tell her what’s wrong, what he’s feeling. She’s persistent but maternal and he’s her child-like lover. He confesses his love and she’s about to confess hers but she’s suddenly aware that her parents might be watching and drags him by the hand out of the room and onto the balcony terrace where the rest of the scene plays out. They’re now in the shadows, almost hidden by the silhouettes of plants from the garden.

Clift’s shoulder partially blocks her face but we see her eyes clearly, searching his face. We then turn to see his face, filled with emotion. We switch back and forth with these magnificent close-ups as they make their plans and as Clift breaks into a sweat it glistens on the side of his forehead. His body unaware of his own acting.

At this point Clift becomes overwhelmed, almost distressed that this is too perfect, his head begins to sink down but she reaches out, clasping it in her hands as he twists and turns like a helplessly lost child, but she never lets him go. She holds him by the mouth and her eyes are half closed, urging him until their lips meet. Locked together in the most passionate embrace I’ve ever seen on screen.

Fade to black.

As the pictures dissolve again and again into each other, it’s just such a sumptuous scene and it remains one of the most famous romantic scenes in film history today. Patricia Bosworth, in her biography on Clift, notes that when Stevens was editing the scene:

As for Taylor, despite her star quality which had already been established with films such as National Velvet (1944), Little Women (1949) and Father of the Bride (1950), something changed with A Place In The Sun, it was this scene. Taught by Stevens to play for an audience of one – the camera, and taking notes from Clift, her performance is compelling as she moves from spoiled rich girl to a kind of mother figure to this hopeless young man in the space of mere minutes.

Stevens created a scene so powerful that he recalls the images in the final scene as Clift walks to meet his fate. Whenever it’s screened at the BFI or anywhere else for that matter, I’ll be there, because like James Dean and countless others who’ve seen the movie over the past decades, I wait for that moment when those luminous faces loom before me. It is, an American tragedy.

Sources:
Bosworth, P (1978) Montgomery Clift A Biography, Limelight Editions
Hyams, J (1992) James Dean, Little Boy Lost, Warner Books Inc
Walker, A (1990) Elizabeth, Orion