Title: A Place in the Sun
Rating: 3 Stars
Having recently completed watching all 100 films on the 2007 AFI Film List, I decided to take a look at one of the films that was on the 1998 version of the list but had fallen off when it was updated.
I picked A Place in the Sun because I knew literally nothing about it. I’m not sure if I’d even heard of the title before, let alone its plot or even what kind of film it is. I did see that it starred Montgomery Clift. I’d at least heard of Clift but really knew nothing about him. I’m pretty sure that I’ve never seen him act before.
Having now watched it, I concur with the AFI on this. I can see why it made the list in 1998 but I can also see why, after a bit more introspection and time, that it really no longer has a place on it. One of the purposes of a film is to entertain. To be honest, this film, although right at 2 hours long, is a bit of a slog. It’s pretty slow paced.
It’s a retelling of Theodore Dreiser’s novel, An American Tragedy. For those unfamiliar with it, it tells the story of a young man that was raised in poverty. He’s driven to escape it anyway that he can. He gets a job as a bellhop. A rich uncle recognizes him and offers him a lowly job in a factory that he owns. The young man is trying to use every opportunity to make his way into society. However, in his loneliness, he takes up with a young woman at the factory and she becomes pregnant. At the same time, he and a rich heiress fall in love. The young woman insists that he marry her. Desperate, he plans to kill her by drowning her in what appears to be a boating accident. At the last moment, he loses his nerve and can’t do it. However, she accidentally falls off the boat and drowns anyway. When the body is found, all evidence points to him having murdered her. He gets convicted even though he is innocent of the crime and is executed.
Full of illicit sex, a failed attempt at an abortion, and rich people living large while poor people can barely survive, this 1925 novel was perfect for its time. This was in the middle of the flapper era where hedonism among the young rich ran rampant in the wreckage of ideals shattered by WWI. The gap between the very rich and everyone else was ever growing (not even close to where it’s at now, for those interested in such things), so the ultimately futile attempt that the young man makes to bridge the gap was probably always hopeless. Margaret Sanger started what turned out to be the precursor of Planned Parenthood in 1921, so the relative frankness of the sex matched its time as well.
Even though the book was written in 1925, the 1951 film was made under the decidedly more puritanical time of the Hays Code. There was no way that the film could be as frank as the novel. Even so, the illicit sex between the young man, George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) and the poor young woman, Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters) is made pretty explicit, even if very subtle. Similarly, without mentioning the word abortion, when Tripp talks to a doctor, it’s pretty obvious why she is there. Without violating the Hays Code, it does successfully communicate what is happening.
This puts me in mind of another film released in 1951, A Streetcar Named Desire. That film needed to be able to communicate the sexual immorality of Blanche, the sexual orientation of Blanche’s true love, the crude sexuality of Stanley, and Stanley’s rape of Blanche. There was no way that this could be done overtly, but Elia Kazan was able to communicate these themes in other subtle ways.
In fact, having both of these films released in 1951 is pretty amazing. Not only for very mature themes that previous US films couldn’t touch, but also for the incandescent nature of the male leads. I wrote about this before, but if your only perspective of Marlon Brando is his roles in The Godfather or Apocalypse Now, you will be blown away by Brando in Streetcar. He exudes sexuality and power. He lights up the screen.
Clift’s performance is different than Brando’s. Don’t get me wrong. Clift is without a doubt movie star handsome. In fact, he and Elizabeth Taylor (playing the rich socialite young woman) are together one of the most beautiful couples I’ve ever seen on film.
However, Eastman is not a figure of power. He’s a nobody trying to be somebody. Despite his ambition, he is at the whim of nearly everyone. He’s at times sullen and morose. He sometimes has to let things happen to him and he just has to take it. Despite the fact that Clift is actually 31 in 1951, he plays Eastman like he’s an aimless 19 or 20 (in fact, Elizabeth Taylor is 19 in 1951). James Dean apparently worshipped Marlon Brando, but I see more of Montgomery Clift in James Dean than I do Brando. He’s a young man that resents the way that the world has treated him, wants to change it, but isn’t sure how.
Going to a film in 1951 and seeing Brando’s and Clift’s breakout performances in a theater must have been a transformative experience for critics. They ushered in the method style of acting that, seventy years later, has essentially taken over the art. They were both nominated for Best Actor Academy Awards that year. They both voted for each other but the traditional acting of Humphrey Bogart carried the day with The African Queen.
Clift’s life did not end well. Having become an established movie star, he had a serious car accident in 1956 (only a year after James Dean’s fatal one). The pain from the accident left him addicted to pills and alcohol. His health quickly deteriorated and he had trouble with his lines or even showing up on set. He was in the film The Misfits. This was Marilyn Monroe’s last film, and she said about him, “he’s the only person I know who is in even worse shape than I am”. He died in 1966 at the age of 46.
In my opinion, A Place in the Sun is not a great film. It is a significant film. It pushed the envelope on how to portray sensitive subjects. It highlighted the real class issues that exists in American society. Along with Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift’s performance ushered in a new style of acting that still is the dominant form today.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The title of the post. In Eastman’s trial where he is convicted and sentenced to die, the prosecuting attorney was…Raymond Burr. Yes, Mr Perry Mason himself! Seeing Raymond Burr intimidate, cajole, and harass the hapless defendant Eastman caused serious cognitive dissonance in my brain.
dorkenstein 