60. A Place in the Sun (1951) directed by George Stevens

by Duane Porter

Vikar Jerome, the protagonist of Steve Erickson’s novel, Zeroville (2007), set in 1970’s Hollywood, has a picture of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift tattooed on his shaved head, “their faces barely apart, lips barely apart, in each other’s arms on a terrace, the two most beautiful people in the history of the movies, she the female version of him, and he the male version of her.” This is the terrace scene from George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun and it is 1969 and no one shaves their head and no one has tattoos. Vikar has been known to react violently when curious onlookers misidentify the couple as James Dean and Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause. It might be hard to find someone that passionate about this movie today, but there are still a few of us captivated by its beautiful delirium.

As it begins, a young man wearing a black leather jacket over a white t-shirt is standing at the side of the highway trying to catch a ride. He turns to look at a huge picture of a bathing beauty on a billboard that declares, “It’s an Eastman.” It’s an image very much like the one in his dreams. Just then, a brand-new Cadillac convertible zooms by and the pretty girl behind the wheel beeps her horn, leaving him standing there as she speeds down the road, a departing vision of his American Dream. Finally, a beat-up old truck, filled with junk, stops and he gets a ride into town. He gets out in front of a large building that has the name, “EASTMAN,” engraved in large letters over the entrance.

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He is George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) and he has come seeking a job at this manufacturing plant, that makes bathing suits, owned by his rich uncle Charles Eastman. Uncle Charles is not in his office and George is asked to come by the house later that evening. George arrives, feeling awkward in a 35 dollar suit he purchased just a few hours before, and is uncomfortably trying to make conversation with his somewhat stuffy relatives when he hears the same distinctive car horn he heard earlier that day out on the highway. The room is soon overtaken by the presence of Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) who has come to pick up George’s cousin, Earl. She doesn’t even notice George but he is struck by her startling beauty.

George is given an entry level position stacking boxes on a cart. The weeks go by and as he becomes more comfortable he begins noticing the girls who work on the line. In the evening a neon sign flashes the name Vickers through his apartment window and from time to time he sees that shiny convertible around town. Bored and lonely, he goes into a movie theater and finds an empty seat. Looking around, he recognizes one of the girls from the plant, she smiles and he moves to the seat next to her. “Small world,” she says. He walks her home, kisses her goodnight, and despite a very strict non-fraternization rule, George and Alice (Shelley Winters) begin their unfortunate affair.

George is more or less reconciled to his life with Alice when, one day, during an inspection tour of the plant, Uncle Charles notices George still stacking boxes and decides it is time to move him to a more responsible position. He invites George to a party at the house so they can have time to talk it over. At the party, George doesn’t know anyone and is ignored by the other guests. He gravitates to an empty room occupied by a large pool table and takes a few practice shots. As he is making a particularly difficult three-rail bank shot, Angela Vickers happens by and, halfway entering the room just as the ball drops, whispers, “wow.” George looks up. She smiles and says, “hello.” He responds, “hello,” and the whole world is changed.

Alice is waiting, she is jealous, she is whiny, and she is in trouble. She is afraid and she needs George to take care of her. He tells her everything will be alright, that he will find a doctor. But everything will not be alright. He doesn’t know what to do with her and she is not simply going to go away. He’s going to have to think of something.

Suddenly, the soap opera melts away and all we see is Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor dancing close together. The face of Elizabeth Taylor fills the screen, the most beautiful woman in the world at the age of seventeen. Then cut to Montgomery Clift, withdrawn and troubled. She wants to know why. He tells her, “I love you. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you. I guess maybe I’ve even loved you before I saw you.” She starts to respond, but then becomes aware of all the people around them and frantically leads him onto the terrace. We’re now so close to them their faces won’t even fit on the screen. She says, “I love you, too. It scares me. But it is a wonderful feeling.” In anguish he replies, “If I could only tell you how much I love you, If I could only tell you all.” She holds him closer and whispers, “Tell Mama, tell Mama all.” They kiss and the chemistry between Monty and Liz is overwhelming. This just might be the most deeply romantic moment ever put on film.

A Place in the Sun was adapted from the novel An American Tragedy (1925) by Theodore Dreiser as well as Patrick Kearney’s subsequent dramatization of the novel. This book had previously been the basis for the 1931 film by Josef von Sternberg also titled An American Tragedy. Dreiser based his story on the sensational Chester Gillette – Grace Brown murder case of 1906. Grace was pregnant with Gillette’s baby and wanted him to marry her. They spent the afternoon on a lake in a rented boat and Grace ended up drowned. Although Gillette claimed she had committed suicide, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and he was later executed. Echoes of this story can also be found in F. W. Murnau’s silent movie masterpiece, Sunrise (1927).

George Stevens had been the director of films such as Swingtime (1936), Woman of the Year (1942), and The More the Merrier (1943). During World War II, as head of an Army film unit, he was present at the D-day invasion, the liberation of Paris, and the horrors of the Dachau concentration camp. After the war, he didn’t want to make musicals and comedies anymore. Much like John L. Sullivan, in Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels (1941), he wanted to make serious films about the human condition.

With A Place in the Sun, Stevens may have thought he was making a social commentary on the class system in America or, perhaps, he was thinking about the moral ambiguity of whether or not we are guilty of the sins in our heart. All these years later, none of that really matters. For he was able to get Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, wondrously close together on that terrace, to say exactly those words. William C. Mellor used an unprecedented telephoto lens to get the intimate close-ups. William Hornbeck cut it and put it together never letting continuity interfere with emotion. And Franz Waxman enveloped it all in one of the most beautifully sublime pieces of music ever written for a motion picture. So now, all that matters is, by the grace of cinema, we have been left this moment, best described by the aforementioned guy with Liz and Monty tattooed on his bald head. Vikar says, “There’s hysteria in it.”

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