A Place in the Sun (1951)

Director:

George Stevens

Writers:

Theodore Dreiser (based on the novel by)
Patrick Kearney (play)
(more)

Release Date:

11 October 1951 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Love that paid the severest of all penalties!

Plot:

A poor boy gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women.

Plot Keywords:

Party | Love | Factory | Assembly Line | Falling In Love

Awards:

Won 6 Oscars. Another 10 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Montgomery Clift	...	George Eastman
Elizabeth Taylor	...	Angela Vickers
Shelley Winters	...	Alice Tripp
Anne Revere	...	Hannah Eastman
Keefe Brasselle	...	Earl Eastman
Fred Clark	...	Bellows
Raymond Burr	...	Dist. Atty. R. Frank Marlowe
Herbert Heyes	...	Charles Eastman
Shepperd Strudwick	...	Anthony 'Tony' Vickers
Frieda Inescort	...	Mrs. Ann Vickers
Kathryn Givney	...	Louise Eastman
Walter Sande	...	Art Jansen - George's Attorney
Ted de Corsia	...	Judge R.S. Oldendorff
John Ridgely	...	Coroner
Lois Chartrand	...	Marsha
Paul Frees	...	Rev. Morrison
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robert J. Anderson	...	Eagle Scout (uncredited)
Gertrude Astor	...	Bit Part (uncredited)
Lulu Mae Bohrman	...	Party Guest (uncredited)
Ken Christy	...	Warden (uncredited)
Pat Combs	...	(uncredited)
Charles Dayton	...	Det. Kelly (uncredited)
Marilyn Dialon	...	Frances Brand (uncredited)
Mike Donovan	...	Prisoner (uncredited)
Frances Driver	...	Lulu - Vickers' Maid (uncredited)
Ralph Dunn	...	Policeman (uncredited)
Franklyn Farnum	...	Company Executive (uncredited)
Al Ferguson	...	Bailiff (uncredited)
Bess Flowers	...	Courtroom Reporter (uncredited)
Ann Fredericks	...	Girl (uncredited)
Kathleen Freeman	...	Factory Worker - Prosecution Witness (uncredited)
Art Gilmore	...	Radio Broadcaster / Trailer Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Lisa Golm	...	Eastmans' Maid (uncredited)
Marion Gray	...	(uncredited)
Dolores Hall	...	Girl (uncredited)
Sam Harris	...	Man (uncredited)
Len Hendry	...	Guard (uncredited)
James Horne Jr.	...	Tom Tipton (uncredited)
Sonny Howe	...	(uncredited)
Frank Hyers	...	Guard (uncredited)
Carmencita Johnson	...	Girl (uncredited)
Kenner G. Kemp	...	Courtroom Spectator (uncredited)
Mary Kent	...	Mrs. Roberts - Landlady (uncredited)
Philip Kieffer	...	Jailer (uncredited)
Louise Lane	...	Girl (uncredited)
Mike Mahoney	...	Motorcycle Officer (uncredited)
Robert Malcolm	...	Guard (uncredited)
Hank Mann	...	Courtroom Spectator (uncredited)
Martin Mason	...	Prisoner (uncredited)
Harold McNulty	...	Jury Foreman (uncredited)
Harold Miller	...	(uncredited)
Lee Miller	...	Bus Driver (uncredited)
Pearl Miller	...	Miss Newton (uncredited)
Frank Mills	...	Courtroom Extra (uncredited)
Hans Moebus	...	William - Butler at Eastman Home (uncredited)
Jay Morley	...	Executive (uncredited)
William B. Murphy	...	Mr. Whiting (uncredited)
William H. O'Brien	...	Servant at Eastman's Party (uncredited)
Frank O'Connor	...	Factory Floorman (uncredited)
Ed O'Neill	...	Deputy (uncredited)
Ezelle Poule	...	Receptionist (uncredited)
Joe Recht	...	Prisoner (uncredited)
John M. Reed	...	Joe Parker (uncredited)
Kasey Rogers	...	Miss Harper (uncredited)
Wallace Scott	...	Factory Guard (uncredited)
Bill Sheehan	...	Court Clerk (uncredited)
Douglas Spencer	...	Boatkeeper (uncredited)
Larry Steers	...	Company Executive (uncredited)
Cliff Storey	...	(uncredited)
Arthur Tovey	...	Juror (uncredited)
Josephine Whittell	...	Margaret - Eastman's Secretary (uncredited)
Eric Wilton	...	Vickers' Butler (uncredited)
Ian Wolfe	...	Dr. Wyeland (uncredited)
Frank Yaconelli	...	Truck Driver (uncredited)

Directed by
George Stevens

Writing credits
Theodore Dreiser		(based on the novel by)
Patrick Kearney		(play adapted from the novel by)
Michael Wilson		(screenplay) and
Harry Brown		(screenplay)

Produced by
Ivan Moffat	....	associate producer
George Stevens	....	producer

Original Music by
Franz Waxman

Cinematography by
William C. Mellor		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
William Hornbeck

Art Direction by
Hans Dreier
Walter H. Tyler		(as Walter Tyler)

Set Decoration by
Emile Kuri

Costume Design by
Edith Head		(costumes)

Makeup Department
Wally Westmore	....	makeup supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Charles C. Coleman	....	assistant director (as C.C. Coleman Jr.)
Gerd Oswald	....	second assistant director

Sound Department
Gene Garvin	....	sound recordist
Gene Merritt	....	sound recordist

Visual Effects by
Farciot Edouart	....	process photography
Loyal Griggs	....	process photography
Gordon Jennings	....	special photographic effects

Stunts
Paul Baxley	....	stunts (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Joan Joseff	....	costume jeweller (uncredited)

Music Department
Daniele Amfitheatrof	....	composer: additional music (uncredited)
David Buttolph	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Gerard Carbonara	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Aaron Copland	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Sidney Cutner	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
John C. Hammell	....	music editor (uncredited)
George Parrish	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Leonid Raab	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Leonid Raab	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Miklós Rózsa	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Leo Shuken	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Van Cleave	....	orchestrator (uncredited)
Roy Webb	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Victor Young	....	composer: additional music (uncredited)

Other crew
Fred Guiol	....	associate director
Howie Horwitz	....	assistant to the producer

Production Companies

• Paramount Pictures (George Stevens' Production)

Distributors

• Paramount Pictures (1951) (USA) (theatrical) (as A Paramount Picture)
• Paramount Pictures (1959) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• National Broadcasting Company (NBC) (1966) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Paramount Home Video (2001) (USA) (DVD)
• Paramount Home Video (2006) (USA) (DVD)
• Paramount Pictures Entertainment (1951) (Canada) (theatrical)
• Paramount (1951) (Belgium) (theatrical)
• Paramount (1952) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Argentina Video Home (????) (Argentina) (VHS)
• CIC Vídeo (????) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Emerald (2008) (Argentina) (DVD)
• Paramount Home Entertainment (2003) (Germany) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Australia:G (original DVD rating) | Australia:PG (DVD re-rating) | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #14461) | Argentina:Atp | Finland:K-11 (re-rating) (1986) | West Germany:12 (f) | Argentina:13 (DVD rating) | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Elizabeth Taylor's "White lilac" gown became a fashion sensation and sold many copies and patterns.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In the scene in prison when George is supposed to walk the last mile, the warden asks him to come out, and there is a long pause. There is someone walking by in the background who clearly begins walking in slow motion for the duration of the pause, then resumes normal speed. Clearly, the shot of the warden standing there was extended by putting the film in slow motion.

Quotes:

Truck driver that picks up George hitchhiking:[First Lines]
[pulling up to Eastman Industries]
Truck driver that picks up George hitchhiking:Is this the place?
George Eastman:Yeah.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Arena: Screen Goddesses" (2012)

Soundtrack:

Bear Ye One Another's Burdens

An American Tragedy, on film, becomes an American masterpiece

Bringing Theodore Dreiser's sprawling novel An American Tragedy to the screen must have been a daunting task, made harder by the constraints Paramount imposed on director George Stevens. The studio had lost big on a version made 20 years earlier, under Josef von Sternberg, and had little faith in a remake. So, hobbled by a tight budget, Stevens scaled back his ambitious plans but delivered, perhaps even to his own surprise, a superbly crafted and and powerfully sustained work of movie art.

He was lucky that Paramount, edgy about the story, gave him a cast that would guarantee not only good box office but solid performances as well. Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelly Winters take the principal roles, with, in the last third of the movie, extra oomph courtesy of Raymond Burr (in a role that may have nabbed him the Perry Mason franchise).

The jaws of the vise Clift finds himself squeezed into are class and sex. Barely educated, raised by stern members of a religious sect, he luckily (or not) happens to be the shirt-tail nephew of a prosperous entrepreneur who casually offers him work in his factory. Awkward and lonesome, Clift escapes the drudgery of his job by taking up with a mousy co-worker (Winters, toned way down from her platinum-bombshell image at the time). But his nose-to-the-grindstone ways attract the attention of his uncle, who rewards him with a promotion and an invitation up to the manor.

There he meets Taylor and launches an obsession about her, reinforced by a neon sign visible from his window that blazes her surname through his restless nights (she's another child of an industrial fortune, raised in wealth and privilege). Somehow, she falls for him – and, need it be added, he for her – despite his coming from the wrong side of the tracks (she hasn't the faintest notion that for people like him, life may not be the blithe affair it is for her).

Only one inconvenient fact keeps Clift from taking his rightful place in the sun: He's left Winters pregnant. The two worlds he occupies are destined to collide, and crash they do when Winters phones him, in the midst of a Hawaiian-themed luau at Taylor's summer place on the lake, to issue her ultimatum: Marry her or she'll spill their sordid secret. He leaves abruptly to meet Winters, desperately trying to assemble the plan which will seal three fates.

Stevens sustains an overwhelming, ominous momentum, unbroken by even a hint of levity (not even a single bit player is allowed to lapse into shtik). Languorous dissolves and superimposed images heighten the sense of inevitability as each scene, each event glides seamlessly into the next.

Maybe he wasn't able to pile on the exhaustive social commentary that bulked up Dreiser's novel, but everywhere there's sharp detail that he adroitly leaves to be noticed. When Clift shows up hours late at his intimate birthday party in Winter's cramped room, with the tiny table pushed up against her marble washstand, the ice cream has warmed to lumpy syrup (a self-homage to a similar scene in Steven's Alice Adams?). With an island combo playing merrily on, Clift sports a lei and eats pineapple out of its shell when Winters calls to break the spell – and this South-Seas reverie is offered up not as Veblenesque excess, but merely as the way Taylor's crowd spend their days and evenings and nights in an endless round of heedless gaiety.

The apex of the film's crescendo is handled with tight, quiet assurance – the reckoning in a rowboat upon a deserted lake. Dusk gathers among the pines like fog, the loons call back and forth, and the rippling waves reflect a demented flash into Clift's eye as he wrestles with his conscience. Winters natters nervously about the dreary life they'll spend together while his head swims with luminous visions of Taylor. Then, destiny catches.... Romantic but unsentimental, serious but without pretension, gripping without stooping to the manipulative, A Place in the Sun ranks as a masterpiece of American cinema.