A Place in the Sun
As part of my quest to watch a greater amount of "classic" films, I am reading through "The Guinness Book of Film: The Ultimate Guide to the Best Films Ever". I realised that I couldn't really call myself a proper movie enthusiast until I had watched more of history's greats, featuring some of the late great stars of bygone era's from the 1920s up to the films of today that are already proving to be instant classic successes. One of my favourite films of all time is Top Hat, featuring the wonderful Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but it was only through reading this book that I realised it was made in the early 1930's! This is an era that seems so far removed from the life we lead today and yet the film has the capacity to engage with humour, romance, and star quality as much today as ever. I have always been a big fan of screen goddesses such as Ginger Rogers, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe, but there was one starlet whose star quality I hadn't actually ever seen on the big screen: Elizabeth Taylor. All I knew of Miss Taylor was very publicised versions of her marriage history, the controversy of the production costs of Cleopatra and her friendship with Michael Jackson. Then I read the plot synopsis of the film "A Place in the Sun" (1951) with an intriguing story and equally intriguing lead stars and had to make a point of watching it.
With A Place in the Sun you instantly feel the vibes of both the glamour and heartache that befell the characters and the real life stars of Hollywood's decadent 1950s cinema. From the lavish music to the flattering blur of black and white, to the gorgeousness of the film's two lead stars and sumptuousness of the fashion and locations, A Place in the Sun at first seems the very epitome of romance and post-war decadence. The handsome and engaging Montgomery Clift plays George Eastman, a young man who leaves the drudgery of poverty and dead-end jobs in the hope of gaining a successful career working for his rich uncle. One of the opening shots we observe is George looking at himself in the reflection of a shop window, with the classic image of his head resting on top of the mannequin dressed in an expensive tweed suit in the reflection. Without any dialogue we know already that this is a man with ambition and dreams to better the lot that he has been dealt in life. Wearing the tweed suit, George goes off to meet his Uncle, a meeting that will alter the course of his life forever. George manages to secure a lowly position in his uncle's company, but the biggest outcome of this meeting is catching a glimpse of the beautiful and charismatic Angela Vickers, played with sincerity by a youthful Elizabeth Taylor. The meeting doesn't mean very much to Angela, but George instantly falls in love with in that very moment and from then on it becomes difficult to determine whether his determination to rise in the business is to fulfil his career ambitions or to pursue Angela.
On his first day at the new job, George is told firmly that relationships between co-workers is strictly prohibited, which of course is going to end in disaster. He soon exchanges what starts out as innocent flirtations with pretty co-worker Alice Tripp, played by Shelley Winters, which eventually becomes something much more serious, and we soon seen the full extent of George's ambitious nature. George goes against the rules to pursue his desire, and despite Alice's meek protests, invites himself to spend
the night together with Alice. Despite what appears to be a rather romantic relationship between them, when George is invited to a party thrown by his Uncle that happens to be on his birthday, he chooses the event that will forward his career (or offer him a chance encounter with Angela) rather than spending the whole night with Alice who has a surprise romantic night planned for him. George assures Alice that he will manage to do both, but when he meets Angela again wearing a beautiful white net sweetheart gown, looking sultry and breath-taking, the pair engage in a spout of flirtation across a pool table while the dinner Alice had cooked for George grows cold and the candle wax drips on the table. When George finally returns to Alice, she truly has a surprise for him, one that ruins their relationship as it requires a commitment that he isn't prepared to sacrifice Angela for: she's pregnant.
George spends the rest of the film running away from his responsibility to Alice, feigning his business ambition and the desire to make the money they will need to raise a family as an excuse to spend more time with Angela. Life with Alice offers no advantages for George, he hasn't found himself in a tragic love triangle but merely stuck with a burden he is too selfish to bear. Life with Alice means returning to the nobody from nowhere lifestyle that he was so desperate to avoid and was the reason that brought him to this new life in the first place. This predicament alone could easily fill the remainder of the film as we question whether George will stand by his moral duty to Alice, or strive instead for the hedonistic life with Angela. However, a chance mention of the dangers of boating accidents and freak drowning incidents during the summer vacations that George hears over the radio one gloomy night in his apartment takes the film on an unexpected, Hitchcockesque, sinister journey from which it will not return.
Now the romantic music, carefree dances and date nights have been replaced by ominous note changes, police sirens and chilling bird calls. As George hears frequent mentions of boating accidents and bodies that disappeared after drowning, echoes of Alice's innocent conversation come flashing back to mind. While packing swimming costumes in boxes George asks her why she would never wear a swim suit. "Don't you look good in one?" George asks, "sure I do" she defiantly replies, "but I can't swim".
Now the film becomes haunting and chilling, as we watch George mentally and physically prepare for the most heinous of crimes in order to avoid facing up to his responsibilities. The whole escapade is doomed from the beginning, even if George carries out Alice's murder his deep and tortured conscience will not allow him happiness with Angela. Is he destined to live as a slave to fate, a Tess d'Urberville of the silver screen, fated to live an unhappy life despite his struggles to thwart it? The film unfolds now like a Hitchcock suspense thriller, building up to a climax, boat rides in the dark, sounds of birds and sirens and close-ups of George's tortured face. All of these warning signals are juxtaposed by the beauty of the lake and the majesty of the shooting star upon which Alice makes a wish that George will love her like he used to. Alice predicts her own fate when she jokes that George probably wished on the star that she were dead. Finally George admits to himself that he cannot go through with it, at which point Alice rises desperately, frantically, to her feet and, by accident or not, falls to her death in the icy water. The next scene we observe is the figure of George rising from the water, slinking back to Angela, without breathing a word of the fate that has just befallen Alice. Questions bubble to the surface about why he didn't try to rescue her or tell anybody what happened. Instead he dreams of fleeing with Angela and marrying her in secret, inadvertently embroiling her in his criminal acts and thrusting his tainted character upon her.
.jpg)
More suspense ensues as slowly detectives piece together the evidence. Almost comedic mix ups then take place as the chilling sound of sirens is heard in the distance, following Angela and George in the car together, only to stop her and get her in trouble for speeding. A short-lived court scene finalises the film as the jury, and us as the spectator, are asked to determine the difference between the intent to commit murder and the act of actually perpetrating it. In the end, after the jury reach their verdict, George re-unites with Angela who has been fervently following the case the whole time. It seems almost a fitting tragedy to end the film that Angela, despite all the wrongs dealt upon her, had the compassion to forgive and still love George. The cruel reality here is that if George had only told her the truth in the beginning, she had such a capacity for love and forgiveness and her devotion to him so strong that she would have loved him anyway, but now they are doomed to say their final goodbye. However, Taylor is so marvellous in the final scene, her character has grown used to goodbyes, that even though this will be their last, and even though she clutches at a white handkerchief, her eyes are dry. Has the weight of the goodbye not yet sunk in for her? Or has she realised that the relationship would never have lasted, now she has gone to school and "learned things", and she leaves the room with an odd smile on her face, suggesting that perhaps her great capacity to forgive belies something more of an indication of her relief at escaping when she did.
The film is very much split in two halves, from the seemingly innocent love triangle of the first half where George's biggest crime is being deceitful, to the chilling second half where frivolous relationships are weighted with a grim reality and George becomes cold, callous and capable of murder. The film is shot wonderfully, set in a black and white haze, where glamour is pitted against the drab through many visual juxtapositions such as the fashion of Alice and Angela. Despite being a cold and calculated two-timing over-reacher, it is possible to feel a portion of sympathy for George, played brilliantly by Clift, who endows him with a wonderful mix of wide-eyed innocence and knowing intent, whose thoughts are always written all over his furrowed brows. This isn't just another black and white "oldie" with beautiful stars and sumptuous costume, but has resonances of classic novels such as du Maurier's "Rebecca" and Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles", giving it a weight that transcends the frivolity of its opening love affair. A Place in the Sun is worth watching time and time again for clues about the doomed love affair and to continue to question your own beliefs about what makes someone guilty of murder. The film is stylish, chilling and exquisite. It makes you dream of the glory years of Hollywood whilst being thankful that you live in a century were some taboos no longer call for such extreme action.
