The radiant Elizabeth Taylor and handsome Montgomery Clift star in this social drama about the haves and the have-nots. George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) is the working class protagonist with aspirations to work for his rich Uncle, Charles Eastman (Herbert Heyes) in his bathing suit factory. He hitchhikes his way from Chicago to his Uncle’s factory. His Uncle decides to put him to work immediately in one of his assembly lines and on the first day, he meets a fellow co-worker, plain Jane Alice Tripp (Shelly Winters). He starts an affair with Alice but he life gets more complicated when he is invited to a party at his Uncle’s lavish home and meets ravishing debutante Elizabeth Taylor. His entanglement between a high society girl and impoverished Alice, causes George Eastman to hatch a plan that portends a calamity.
One of the extras on the DVD is an interview with Elizabeth Taylor. She was 18 at the time of this role and it was on the set of A Place in the Sun where she met and became life-long friends with Montgomery Clift. This was Taylor’s first adult film role and she looks absolutely stunning. She talks at length about her friendship with “Monty” in the interview and how she really learned what acting was about from him. It is a marvelous, B/W film directed by George Stevens emphasizing the complexity of the class divide in America. The film was adopted from Timothy Drieser’s 1925 novel, An American Tragedy which in turn, was based on a real life 1906 trial of Chester Gillette in the state of New York.
Many of the external shots of Lake Tahoe were shot on location and add to the beauty of the film.
1 Comment
January 2, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Fab picture and great review!