Elizabeth Taylor in "A Place In The Sun" (1951)

Elizabeth Taylor in "A Place in the Sun" (image from JSR Pages)

REVIEW:
A landmark film for Elizabeth Taylor's career. Her meeting with a great director (George Stevens) and with a great actor (Montgomery Clift) as well as with a generous story (the film was adapted from the famous American novel: "An American Tragedy") was a real challenge for the 18 years-old Elizabeth Taylor. She had already acted in 16 films until then, but it took this film for her to really start being an actress. Over the years, George Stevens will do his most successful films with Elizabeth Taylor. Montgomery Clift will become the best friend of Elizabeth Taylor.

"A Place In The Sun" was an enormous box office success and the critics loved it - Paramount has postponed the premiere for a whole year so that it would not compete with another great Paramount picture: "Sunset Boulevard".
The film ranks 92 on the best movies of all time list (AFI).

FILM TITLE
"A PLACE IN THE SUN"(U.S.A./Paramount Pictures/1951)

PROMO
Clift and Taylor: The most beautiful couple in movie history (Andrew Sarris)

OVERVIEW
An ambitious young man (Montgomery Clift) manages to win the heart of a beautiful and rich heiress (Elizabeth Taylor), but - at the same time - he has to decide what to do with his poor and...pregnant ex-girlfriend (Shelley Winters). Will she leave him alone or will he need...to kill her?

CAST
Montgomery Clift (George Eastman), Elizabeth Taylor (Angela Vickers), Shelley Winters (Alice Tripp), Anne Revere (Hannah Eastman), Raymond Burr (Detective).
DIRECTED BY
George Stevens.
SCREENPLAY
Michael Wilson, Harry Brown and Patrick Kearney, from "An American tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser.
PRODUCED BY
Ivan Moffat and George Stevens.
DURATION
122 minutes.
GENRE
drama, romance, murder mystery.
PRODUCTION DATES
between October 1949 - March 1950.
RELEASED
October 1951.

NOMINATED at
- Oscar for Best Actor (Montgomery Clift), Oscar for Best Actress (Shelley Winters), Oscar for Best Picture.
AWARDS
- Oscar for Best Director (George Stevens), Oscar for Best Cinematography (William C. Mellor), Oscar for Best Editing (William Hornbeck), Oscar for Best Music (Franz Waxman), Oscar for Best Screenplay, Oscar for Best Costume Designer (Edith Head);
- Golden Globe for Best Film, Golden Globe for Best Director.

TRIVIA
- George Stevens changed the title from "An American Tragedy" into "A Place In The Sun", due to the first film version's failure in 1931;
- Shelley Winters was so determined to get the poor girl's role that she went to the audition dressed modestly and without makeup, so that the director would not recognize her;
- after this movie, all of her life, Shelley Winters bought only white Cadillacs, because the image of Elizabeth Taylor driving a white Cadillac in the movie, marked her forever;
- for the role of the rich, young and beautiful girl in the movie, George Stevens wanted a gorgeous young woman, a surreal beauty and he specifically asked for Elizabeth Taylor. It was considered a risky move, considering that until this film, M.G.M. has never given Elizabeth Taylor such a complex role as that of Angela Vickers;
- the scene on the beach between Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift was filmed in...October, after the team had cleared the snow from shore of Lake Tahoe, California;
- Elizabeth Taylor fell in love with Montgomery Clift, but soon she realized that he was not interested in women; in turn, a special friendship developed between them, uninterrupted until the actor's untimely death in 1966;
- at first, both Elizabeth Taylor and her mother, Sara Taylor, have been outraged by the line that the director forced Elizabeth Taylor to deliver to Montgomery Clift, in the famous kiss scene: "Tell Mama...tell Mama all!". This line has become one of the most famaous in the history of the cinema.

Watch TRAILER here.