Released: August 14, 1951 (LA)
Director: George Stevens
*****
It's always a treat to try and decipher dialogue from the 1950's, a time when various words could not be said on screen-only implied. Certainly there was no blatant homosexuality on the screen and no one was ever "pregnant," let alone pregnant without being married. It is similarly fascinating to watch what the filmmakers could do and what they couldn't: for instance, a downtrodden Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters) can die by drowning, a district attorney can simulate what he thinks happened between Alice and George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) and he can be put to death at the end.
When Eastman is brought into the family business, he quickly begins an affair with Tripp, a lowly worker. Soon, she becomes pregnant and George catches the eye of socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). He abandons Alice in favor of Angela's world. But when the baby threatens to out him, George faces a choice: stay with Alice, raising the baby, or live with Angela?
A Place in the Sun refers to George's ascent in society as well as the Eastman family. He finally gets his moment to shine-which he does-though squanders it. Why? A simply morality tale, really: he and Alice don't use any sort of contraception and then he's shocked to find out she's "in trouble." And when he doesn't tell the truth (gee, another lesson), the world goes down the drain.
The most fascinating aspect of the movie by far is the eventual lake drowning. Did George hit Alice on the head with the oar, as the prosecution claims? We don't know. She rocks the boat, presumably falling in. And the rest of the sequence in seen from a distance, or in long shot. George may or may not have hit her; it's up to the viewer to decide. What we do know is the eventual jury outcome and, incidentally, the endgame. George is being pinned for the murder--thankfully not a double murder, as we've been privy to in the real world.
Every action and reaction in A Place in the Sun is born out of desperation, a longing for immediate answers to complicated questions. It's a commentary on the 1950s...but it's a commentary on today, too.