Monty @ 100: The influential peak of "A Place in the Sun"
Monday, October 5, 2020 at 8:11PM We're watching all 17 of Montgomery Clift's films for his centennial. Here's Juan Carlos...
After starring in The Search, Red River, The Heiress, and The Big Lift, all but one of them either a critical or commercial success, Montgomery Clift reached an even great peak in 1951 with George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun. It was the adaptation of a novel and play, both called An American Tragedy, that were in turn inspired by the real-life murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in 1906. The story, already made into a 1931 pre-Code drama as An American Tragedy, took on a life of its own in its 1951 form. A Place in the Sun's now classic tale of doomed romance and class divide proved a crucial success in the careers of all of its key players, winning six Oscars in a tight battle for Best Picture with An American in Paris.
Shelley Winters stripped herself of the bombshell packaging that the studio system had placed on her and in turn earned her first Academy Award nomination. For Elizabeth Taylor, the film was a key act in her transition from juvenile star to legendary adult star. Meanwhile, the film gave director George Stevens his first Oscar on his second nomination. For Clift, this film, coupled with Marlon Brando’s smolderingly threatening work in Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire released the same year, put The Method into the mainstream leading to an inevitable shift in acting styles in American cinema...
