FAVORITE FILM NUMBER FIVE: A Place In The Sun (1951)
A few days ago, a college professor of mine posited these two questions: "Is there a middle class in the United States? If so, what is the middle class?" Most students responded that the middle class consists of anyone who isn't exceedingly wealthy or wretchedly poor. While some may say nowadays that the notion of classes in general has become an egalitarian (perhaps even non-existent) concept, in the recent past social stratification was an extraordinarily important, and often times crushing, inflammatory concept. Of course, it isn't an issue unique to the United States. As far back as civilizations go, there have always been divisions between the "haves" and "have-nots," and socialists Karl Marx and Frederich Engels articulated that in their benchmark 1848 work, The Communist Manifesto. Accordingly: in the days of of ancient Greece and Rome, there were masters & slaves and patricians & plebeians (respectively). In the middle ages, there were lords/aristocrats & serfs, and following the French Revolution of 1789, there were what Marx labeled the bougeois and proletariat (middle and working class, respectively). Marx, who predicted that this type of dialectic (conflict-driven) materialism would eventually bring about a revolution by the "working class" that would result in a communal society without private property, didn't foresee the chafing attitudes about society and life that his work would elicit in people. The merciless, cutthroat pursuit of wealth, comfort, and success is not without a dark side, and some people have even been corrupted into forfeiting for lives and morals just for a shot at the "American Dream," a theme compassionately portrayed in George Steven's 1951 romantic crime drama, A Place In The Sun.
Based on Theodore Dreiser's 1925 novel, An American Tragedy, which influenced the similarly-titled stage and film adaptation by Paul Kearney and Joseph von Sternberg in 1926 and 1931 (all mediums, names, and years respectively addressed), A Place In The Sun was inspired by the true story of Grace Brown, a poor female factory worker in 1906 New England who drowned in a lake and was considered an alleged homicide victim. In this particular story, Montgomery Cliff plays George Eastman, the humble and complacent nephew of a rich factory owner. Despite his relationship to "Mr. Eastman" (as he addresses him), George is treated unfairly, excluded from his uncle's social circle and given the most inferior job at his factory. However, George doesn't complain, only wishing to impress his uncle and eventually scale his way up the social ladder. Things get complicated, though, when George becomes romantically involved not only with Alice "Al" Trip (Shelley Winters), a poor female factory worker who labors alongside him, but also Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), a wealthy "society girl." When Alice becomes pregnant, George, who enjoys a lavish and intoxicating, carefree lifestyle with Angela and her family at their lakeside home, faces an excruciatingly inescapable dilemma: abandon Alice, a poor and expecting mother, for a life his kin never let him experience, or stay with Alice and live a life of inevitable poverty.
I will admit: this wasn't a film I was absolutely in love with at first (or watched over and over again like some of my other favorites). It was a film I appreciated for its subject matter, which, like many other films of the 1950s (including Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" [1955] and George Stevens's later adaptation from literature, "Giant" [1957]), dealt with rigid social lines and class tension. However, when the film picked up pace and George realized the predicament that he was in, the story sank into me like razor sharp fangs. The acting by Cliff, Winters, and Taylor is superb, and the complexities of their respective characters can be viscerally experienced in every second and every frame of the film. During one nighttime party scene, a close-up, softly-lit view of George and Angela melting into each other's arms while slowly rocking back and forth on the dance floor gives us an immediate sense of George's struggle. He's been an obedient and optimistic, hardworking man his entire life. However, that is not to say he enjoys being that way. Like many people would probably agree, toiling endlessly in a factory for little pay and a life in the shadows is not usually a glorious experience. Being in the arms and heart of the beautiful and wealthy Angela must therefore be a huge breath of fresh air for George. We as an audience, who have most likely experienced proverbially similar, Sisyphean moments of suffocation and relief, can definitely empathize with him.
SPOILER ALERT: although it is not my intention, the following two paragraphs may give away important plot information. If you haven't seen the movie and wish to see it, avoid reading further. If you have seen it or aren't concerned about reading possibly important plot information, read on at your own risk.
Similarly, in another scene that highlights the painfully believable performances of the main characters (this time Cliff and Winters), George and Alice slowly paddle their way across a shimmeringly silver, moonlit lake. George, who'd been originally planning on quietly murdering Alice via drowning her in the lake, is having second thoughts. As Alice obliviously confesses her plans for the future, we see the look on George's face. It is a heavy expression of disappointment and internal human anguish. Although he's teetering on the brink of complete spiritual relinquishment, George, who slouches forward and barely skims the water with his oar blades, remains stoic, perseverant, and penitent. It's like watching a gambling addict trying to remain dignified after losing his life savings to one roll of the die or one nose of the winning horse. George, facing the music, looks up at Alice, and just as she begins to perceive the wavering emotions he's having and the predicament he's experiencing, an accident occurs!
The final strength of this film is its writing (courtesy of Dreiser, Harry Brown, and Michael Wilson). For instance, George, whose shrewdness has been clouded by an overwhelming sense of nervousness, checks out a boat on the lake, gives the keeper a false name, and then, sensing that the man doesn't buy his story (or name for that matter), suspiciously asks him if anyone else is on the lake (even though it's nighttime and clearly no one is). This incident, plus an earlier one in which a bus driver witnesses George and Alice arguing loudly (as well as a later one in which, after the lake accident, George, shaken and disoriented, washes ashore and startles a group of campers), help foreshadow George's inadvertent downfall and eventual legal condemnation. Another example of the superb writing is represented by a scene in which Alice tells George that the Eastman's "are in a different boat than you and I," a brilliant use of foreshadowing.
A powerful, well-acted, and influential film that broached many uneasy topics of the time, A Place In The Sun deserves its place there as well.
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