A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)
75TH ANNIVERSARY PRESENTATION
For 75 years, audiences have swooned as Elizabeth Taylor pulls Montgomery Clift to her and croons, “Tell Mama…tell Mama all.” George Stevens turned Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 An American Tragedy into a study of the American love affair with success. After an impoverished childhood, Clift’s George Eastman uses family connections to land a factory job and invitations to his rich uncle’s parties, where he falls in love with Taylor, a beautiful, wealthy young woman who represents his every dream. Before they can be together, however, he must deal with a factory girl (Shelley Winters) with whom he’s been having an affair. Stevens’ film challenged the censors of the day while also providing a series of unforgettable images, shot and scored by Oscar-winners Willam C. Mellor and Franz Waxman. It remains one of the screen’s most searing romances as well as one of its most critical treatments of America’s fascination with wealth.
d. George Stevens, 122m, DCP
DCP courtesy of Paramount Pictures.