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A Place In The Sun Details

1951 DVD Certificate PG.gif
  • Rated:
  • 70
  • from 1049 members

George Stevens' lavish adaptation of this classic casts Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor as the star-crossed lovers. As George Eastman (Clift) hitchhikes into the town where a job awaits him at the factory of his affluent Uncle Charles (Herbert Heyes), the lovely Angela Vickers (Taylor) speeds by him. Although the job .. Read more

Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere
Director George Stevens
Genres Drama

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A Place In The Sun

George Stevens' lavish adaptation of this classic casts Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor as the star-crossed lovers. As George Eastman (Clift) hitchhikes into the town where a job awaits him at the factory of his affluent Uncle Charles (Herbert Heyes), the lovely Angela Vickers (Taylor) speeds by him. Although the job entails packing bathing suits all day, the young man works hard in his eagerness to get ahead. Driven by loneliness, he becomes involved with coworker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), a simple woman of limited appeal, in a relationship which defies company policy. After receiving a promotion, he's invited to a party at the home of the wealthy Vickers family, where he meets Angela, and the two quickly fall in love. While he and Angela continue to see each other, he is forced to continue his involvement with Alice, who threatens to get him fired by revealing their relationship. At the end of a whirlwind summer George and Angela receive the approval of her father (Sheppard Strudwick) on their marriage plans. Shortly thereafter, Alice informs George that she's pregnant with his child. Stevens transforms Theodore Dreiser's biting critique of America's caste system into a glossy romantic melodrama. Sumptuously photographed by William Mellor, who frames the almost inhumanly attractive couple in some of the most dizzyingly enraptured close-ups in movie history, the film features excellent performances by Shelley Winters and Clift, whose presence maintains an earnest, haunted passivity.

Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere, Raymond Burr
Director George Stevens
Studio PARAMOUNT HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Run time DVD: 1 hr 57 mins
Certificate DVD Certificate PG.gif
Genres Drama
Language English
Dubbed French, German, Italian, Spanish
Hearing-impaired English
Subtitles Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
Released DVD: 18 Nov 2002
Production year: 1951
Format DVD
  • Critics' reviews (4) of A Place In The Sun

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  • 4 stars out of 5

    Elizabeth Taylor has never looked lovelier, or the young Montgomery Clift more tortured than in this glossy adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's dour novel An American Tragedy, previously filmed by Josef von Sternberg. This film won six Oscars, including best director for George Stevens, whose trademark dissolves are most tellingly displayed as Clift and Taylor meet for the first time. Trouble is, this tale of love across the tracks has dated badly, and today seems rather drawn out. But Clift and, especially, Shelley Winters are brilliant, so forget the plot and just revel in what was once Hollywood's idea of classy movie-making.

    • Radio Times
  • 2 stars out of 4

    Overblown, overlong and over-praised melodrama from a monumental novel of social guilt; sometimes visually striking, this version alters the stresses of the plot and leaves no time for sociological detail. A film so clearly intended as a masterpiece could

    • Halliwell's Film Guide
  • Most helpful member's review of A Place In The Sun

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  • 5 out of 5 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 4 stars

    More than melodrama...

    What starts looking like three hanky tale about a girl loved and left (Shelley Winters is excellant in the part) quickly moves towards tragedy in a relentless fashion that surprises. That Montgomery Clift's character falls for Elizabeth Taylor's is no surprise what she sees in him is a little harder to understand - but still a good film.

      • Andrew from Scotland
  • Most recent members' review of A Place In The Sun

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  • 3 out of 4 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 5 stars [Highly rated reviewer]

    A place in history

    An enduring and swooning romance with an underbelly of fatalism as poor boy Clift tries to better himself by moving up a social set and finds that destiny has other things in mind for him. Clift was never more sympathetic playing a not entirely likeable young man who succumbs to temptation. And who wouldn't with Taylor at her most luminously beautiful? Their kissing scene is one of the cinema's most erotically charged moments.

      • RJNeb2
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Rating breakdown

1,049 Member ratings
  • 100
93
  • 90
77
  • 80
184
  • 70
196
  • 60
219
  • 50
106
  • 40
65
  • 30
48
  • 20
41
  • 10
20

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    • A Place In The Sun
      George Stevens' lavish adaptation of this classic casts Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor as the star-crossed lovers. As George Eastman (Clift) hitchhikes into the town where a job awaits him at the factory of his affluent Uncle Charles (Herbert Heyes), the lovely Angela Vickers (Taylor) speeds ...