George Eastman, the poor nephew of rich industrialist Charles Eastman, is offered an entry-level job at his uncle's factory. Contrary to company rules, he begins secretly dating coworker Alice Tripp. Alice believes thar George's famous surname will bring her advantages. Charles invites George to a social event, where George meets socialite Angela Vickers. They have a mutual attraction and fall in love. Just as George enters the carefree lifestyle of his new life with Angela, Alice discloses that she is pregnant and expects George to marry her. George avoids Alice and spends more time with Angela without Alice's knowledge. George is invited to Angela's family lake house forLabor Day and tells Alice that the visit will advance his career. Alice discovers George's lie after seeing a newspaper photograph of George and Angela boating with friends. Alice calls George at the Vickers home and threatens to go there and reveal herself unless he leaves and returns to her. George is shaken and tells his hosts that his mother is sick and that he must leave.
The next morning, George and Alice drive to City Hall to marry, but it is closed for the holiday. George is relieved, and remembering that Alice cannot swim, plans to drown her in the lake by faking an accident. Alice unsuspectingly agrees to the venture at the lake, where George attempts to conceal the upcoming murder by falsely stranding his car in the woods and renting a rowboat under a false name. While they are on the lake, Alice discusses her dreams concerning their happy future together with their child. As George appears to take pity on her, Alice tries to stand in the boat, causing it to capsize, and Alice drowns.
George escapes, swims to shore, behaves suspiciously when he comes across campers on his way back to the car and drives to the Vickers' lodge. He does not report the accident. Alice's body is discovered and her death is treated as a homicide as the evidence against George begins to mount. Just as Angela's father approves Angela's marriage to him, George is arrested and charged with the murder. George's furtive actions before and after Alice's death condemn him. His denials are futile, and he is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in the electric chair. Near the end, he accepts his guilt when a priest mentions his failure to save Alice. Angela visits George in prison, professing her love, and George slowly marches toward his execution.
On November 14, 1949, a letter from the Production Code Administration's Joseph I. Breen identified a worrisome issue with the dialogue between Alice and her doctor. Breen cautioned against direct references to abortion, specifically the line in the script in which Alice says, "Doctor, you've got to help me." In the finished film, the line became, "Somebody's got to help me", and while it is implied that Alice does not want the baby, the film avoids mentioning it.[3]
In 1965, director George Stevens threatened to sue any television stations for that inserted commercials into the film without his approval.[4]
Release
The film was afforded a lavish premiere at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951 that was attended by many Hollywood stars.
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic A. H. Weiler called the film "a work of beauty, tenderness, power and insight" and wrote:
"A Place in the Sun" emerges as a credit to both the motion-picture craft and, we feel reasonably certain, the author's major intentions. Out of Dreiser's often murky and turgid tale of the Twenties—now the present—the stream of words in "An American Tragedy," as has been noted many times previously, was not easy to navigate—scenarists Michael Wilson and Harry Brown have distilled the essence of tragedy and romance that is both moving and memorable. Retained, too, in this two-hour drama—representing the painstakingly edited end result of hundreds of thousands of feet of material shot—are characterizations which cleave to the Dreiser originals. And it is a tribute to deft dramatization that the young principals are projected as fully as the maelstrom of life in which they are trapped and with which they are unable to cope. ... Despite the fact that this version of Dreiser's tragedy may be criticized—academically, we think—for its length or deviations from the author's pattern, "A Place in the Sun'' is a distinguished work, a tribute, above all, to its producer-director and an effort now placed among the ranks of the finest films to have come from Hollywood in several years.[5]
Critic Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "This is a remarkably fine screen rendition ... There have been many advance reports about the film's excellence. In no wise do they diminish the actual impact of the poignant story of an ambitious youth, who becomes involved in a strange sinister web of romance, loses his chance in the world and his opportunity to win happiness through the radiant love of a young girl of high social caste. The picture not only has its appeal, but its lesson to offer the public. The combination of the two will make it a memorable event for filmgoers."[1]
The film earned an estimated $3.5million at the U.S. and Canadian box offices, and earned critical acclaim in 1951.[6][7] Upon viewing the film, Charlie Chaplin called it "the greatest movie ever made about America",[8] while film critic Pauline Kael called it a self-consciously paralyzed imitation of European art.[9]
The white party dress with its bust covered with flower blossoms that was designed by Edith Head and worn by Elizabeth Taylor became the most popular promdress style in the U.S. in 1951[11] and influenced prom and wedding-dress design for the rest of the decade.[12]
References
12Schallert, Edwin (August 15, 1951). "'Place in the Sun' Sets Pace for 1951 Film Conquests". Los Angeles Times. p.8, Part III.
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