Take 48: A Place in the Sun
When I was looking up how to watch George Stevens’s 1951 drama, A Place In The Sun, the Google summary results showed that it was based on a Theodore Dreiser novel called “An American Tragedy”. That little bit of information shifted my perspective of the film as I watched it with the knowledge that there was no chance of a happy ending for the young George Eastman, played by Montgomery Clift. What follows was a melancholic portrayal that inverts some of our most pervasive national myths, most importantly the persistent belief that anyone can break through the confinement of the situation they’re born into.
The film starts with a familiar formula. George is hitchhiking his way out of Chicago following what was most likely a half-hearted offer on behalf of his uncle to come visit after a chance meeting at a hotel. George is poor and his uncle is rich, the owner of what seems to be a women’s bathing suit factory? I’m not totally clear on what they’re selling but there are large murals of women in bikinis inexplicably lounging above the assembly line. This omnipresent suggestion of sex is a surprising, and in some ways refreshing element of the movie, I would think this was especially true in the 1950s.
When George first arrives at the company, one of the first things his cousin and boss tells him is that, “Nine out of ten Eastman employees are women. There’s a company rule against mixing with the girls here. My father asked me to call this to your attention. That is a must.” George of course agrees to the terms, and there’s an enjoyable little role reversal when the woman on the assembly line eye the fresh meat and wolf whistle at him as he sheepishly smiles. It’s entirely unsurprising that shortly after this moment we see George dating Alice, played by Shelly Winters, who is one of the women who scoped him out that first day.
The film does a nice job of not overly focusing on either character being tormented about this decision. Much like the inefficacy of abstinence only sex ed policies, the “no fraternization between employees” policy is equally pie in the sky. Of course George and Alice had sex because they were two young, available, attractive people working in the same vicinity as each other. One of the highlights of the film for me is that while there is plenty of melodrama, there’s also a subtle matter-of-factness that the filmmakers apply to sex and pleasure that refocuses the gaze away from guilt and toward the pragmatic truth that longing and desire and acting on impulse are part of the human experience, even when there are serious potential consequences.
The dubious faith in guilt and fear to dissuade sexual activity is extended to our favorite American belief that any individual can change their fate in this country if they’re ambitious and resourceful enough. George Eastman is not entirely without a launch pad — his uncle is the leader of a successful manufacturing facility and he leverages that connection immediately. He’s reminded consistently he’s an Eastman and after paying some dues on the assembly line where he meets Alice, his uncle ups the nepotism and finds him a higher paying position. This social escalation and fortunate familial connection allows him to meet Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) and the two fall into something close to love.
It’s difficult for me to know if George really loves her or if he is attracted to the life she represents that has always felt out of reach for him. A life where their social engagements are written about in newspapers, and he becomes the subject of envy instead of the distributor of it. There are abundant indications throughout the film that George is desperate for a new life, and in many ways ashamed of the past that made him. He’s looking for a bridge to a life that has always eluded him and Angela is that bridge. She’s a woman unafraid to embrace a man beneath her class because she knows that being young, beautiful, rich, and close to famous relegates her to almost untouchable status amongst the wealthy — he’s a reputational risk she can willingly absorb. An unintended but fascinating result of the film is that casting Montgomery Clift in the lead role added a layer of dynamic American history and tragedy. It’s widely known that Clift was a closeted queer man, he may have been gay or bisexual, it’s unclear. But this knowledge, confirmed by his lifelong friend and costar, Elizabeth Taylor, adds a deepening perspective to the shame that shrouds his interactions with Alice. He’s shown in shadow, fears the exposure of their relationship, and this terror and guilt that consumes him resonates more powerfully and seems to time travel to the modern audience watching with a different understanding of what forbidden desire could have meant to the actor.
The central conflict of the film comes when Alice reveals her pregnancy after George has formed a relationship with Angela, and the house of cards he’s built collapses around him just as he had neared the lifestyle he so longed for. In the end, there are calls for George to “get the chair” for murdering Alice and Stevens handles the final scenes with a delicate touch that shows George’s relationships with the past exposed one at a time. There is fuzziness around whether George was responsible for Alice’s death, but the calls for George’s life are accommodated by the judicial system. This is an American tragedy, full of collisions between the platitudes we’re desperate to put faith in, and the stark reality of their dubiousness.
