A Place in the Sun

Before we begin, today must be Cosmic Music Man Day. I'm watching The Apartment right now, which has a sequence where Jack Lemmon gets tickets to the show, which happens to be my personal favorite and the only one I've ever seen on Broadway. Now I turn on Family Guy to see a complete rendition of "Shipoopi", the great number from the show performed by Buddy Hackett. Peter Griffin knows his musicals. Anyway.

I'm going to talk about A Place in the Sun, coming in at 92 on the AFI's list. I don't like divulging all the details of a movie when the people I'm talking to haven't seen it yet. But I'm going to do it in this case because it allows me to say some things I particularly want to get to. So if you don't want to know what happens, stop reading now.

It was made in 1951, the same year that brought us Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, The African Queen, and A Streetcar Named Desire. Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters are the three principal characters, and that's some pretty good star power. Raymond Burr is also in a supporting role as the hard-charging prosecutor with a touch of the dramatic. Pretty much a 180 from playing Perry Mason. Clift plays George Eastman, a poor guy from the Midwest who makes his way to the big city to take a job with his uncle's company. We get a sense of his situation right away when the uncle informs his family that George is on the way. "But what are we to do about him socially?" his wife says. It's a great line that says a lot about how things were done in the place and time.

He meets Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), who he's not supposed to date because she's a coworker. Does that stop him? Noooooo. And a few weeks later, there are--what's the word I'm looking for?--consequences. George has in the meantime fallen in love with Angela Vickers, played by Elizabeth Taylor. She's classier and prettier than Alice, and from a socially respectable (ahem: rich) family. Taylor was 17 when she played the role, which is really amazing. She looks fantastic. So George has a dilemma. He's got a shot at really hitting the big time: promotion at work, getting a great girl way above his social station, and putting his past life as a poor family missionary worker way behind him. Only Alice and her delicate condition stand in his way. And Alice, as it turns out isn't going anywhere.

She discovers George's deception of going on vacation with Angela, and not with his uncle as he said. So she goes to the resort town, gives him a ring, and demands her share of his attention, or she'll tell the world her story and ruin him. So they go on a romantic canoe trip out on the lake. This is where Clift gets really good, by the way. Nervousness and anguish and anticipation and fear and anxiety all over his face. Alice tries to blackmail him into loving her and being happy with her. Oh, Alice, Alice, Alice. Yes, he done you wrong, but this? You can blackmail for money, you can blackmail for for money, and you can blackmail for fame. But you can't blackmail for love.

The boat takes a tumble, and so do Alice and George. Alas, Alice can't swim. So Alice is out of the way, and George has a clear path to Angela. If only Raymond Burr hadn't come after him with the clear intention of sending him to the electric chair.

The movie is based on An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser. Maybe you've heard of him. But the story isn't the distinctive part of the movie for me. The acting is very, very good. The big four actors are marvelous in their respective roles, and Clift is far and away the best of the lot. This is a wonderful movie, though I don't know if it's the kind of movie that anyone would go out of their way to watch. It's not a particularly happy one.