1951 dramaRating: 14/20
Plot: George Eastman, a kid renting-to-own his leather jacket, has become annoyed when others, in his presence, refer to him as What's-His-Face or, when talking directly to him, What's-Your-Face. He decides it must have something to do with his bad posture and walks the alleys where he knows unlicensed chiropractors cluster in the shadows with semi-legal instruments. When something called The Vertibrayer Machine (actually a donkey with a flashlight taped to its head) rips a hole in his shirt, What's-His-Face storms off. He meets a pair of women trying to buy the same watermelon. One of them, the one on the right, has one hand, the one on the left, that is abnormally larger than the other hand, so What's-His-Face becomes perturbed. As we all would. The other woman looks a lot like Elizabeth Taylor and gives What's-His-Face what he will later, under oath, refer to as one "mighty wood." To him, there's no alternative, so he kills the big-handed girl by accidentally submerging her head in a lobster tank. He attempts to hide in the middle of the road following the crime (an accidental one) but is caught, tried, and sentenced to death, appropriately by being squeezed to death by a large rubber hand.
OK, somebody is going to have to explain to me what is so special about this movie. I know somebody will (keeping my fingers cross that it's burymore). I really felt that the entire first half of this movie was a complete waste of my time. Montgomery Clift's performance is just fine, but I never care for his character and there's almost no versatility with the role. The second half of the movie nudges up against greatness a few times, but it's not enough to make me forget that the first half of the movie is about as exciting as the above poster makes you think it will be. I like the tension in the climactic boat scene although it went on long enough for me to start yelling, "C'mon! Just kill her!" at my television screen. There are two scenes involving radios that I really like, and the photography throughout the movie is terrific. Color might have ruined the movie. But other than Clift, the acting isn't great. Elizabeth Taylor does nothing special; Shelley Winters gives a performance that gets more grating as the movie goes on, almost to the point where I wanted to kill her; Raymond Burr is ludicrous in a completely ludicrous courtroom scene; and the peripheral stock characters are mostly cardboard. I didn't really buy the romance either, no matter how many exhausting minutes were spent with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor talking about how their romance was real or kissing. Nope, not even when a final image of Eastman's walk to the electric chair is overlayed with an earlier image of the two kissing. This ain't a bad movie, but I don't think it's all that close to being a great one.
I think I'm just smitten by Monty Clift. I don't know anyone who doesn't want Shelly Winters dead by the end of this, which seems to be a unique angle, bringing out our own murderous tendancies? I think it was a brilliant PR move to call it A Place In The Sun instead of the novel's title, "An American Tragedy"
ReplyDeleteIf Shelley's performance (and the direction of her) is an attempt to help the audience sympathize with Clift's character, that's pretty sick. I'm not saying I'd be against that or anything, but it's sick.
ReplyDeleteI read 'An American Tragedy' in college. And 'Sister Carrie'...Dreiser was born in Terre Haute (ISU's location), so that might have something to do with it. That's probably why we had to read Larry Bird's books, too. That alphabet book 'B Is for Basketball' and his autobiography, 'My Life in Pictures That Other People Took with a Camera' subtitled 'Nobody Can Take Pictures of Themselves Playing Basketball but If Anybody Could Do It, It Would Probably Be Me, Larry Bird!'
OK. Since I don't think Burymore has ever expressed an opinion about this, and WR simply seems obsessed with Montgomery Clift, allow be to explain why this is a classic film.
ReplyDeleteThe greatness is all in the original title of "An American Tragedy". Clift is a nobody with the future of a nobody. Through luck and his being the best looking guy on screen, a door opens to a better life. A MUCH better life. A life with the most well adjusted rich people ever. Water skiing, parties, and, oh yeah, making it with Elizabeth Taylor. And not just Elizabeth Taylor, but a Taylor who, along with "Rear Window" Grace Kelly, is the most beautiful woman I have seen in a movie. Every scene Stevens shoots is perfect at establishing what is at stake.
Then ominous clouds begin to appear. Stevens does a masterful job of turning up the tension on Clift, and the audience who is pulling for him. The contrast between a life in paradise and a life with the increasingly hysterical Winters is wonderfully established. We know it's wrong, and Monte knows it's wrong, but we understand the pressure he feels. It may be morally wrong, but if loving Taylor is wrong (as well as beating Winters with a stick), than he don't wanna be right. He almost does the right thing. The scene at the lake is wonderfully acted, filled with tension, subtext, and uncertainty. But again, it's all in the original title. It does go on, but is amazing and unlike any scene in any other movie. It also reinforces my axiom that any movie that kills Shelley Winters is a good one (the same holds true for Angela Lansbury).
What else? Things unravel with even greater tension. Then, I love the simple realism of how Clift gets caught. Nothing hysterical. Just running into a cop having a smoke. I love that. How does the beautiful Taylor react? By performing the screen's greatest faint. One time I slow-mo'd that baby about five times, and Taylor doesn't cushion anything. She literally falls over on her face without bending a knee. Yes, the courtroom scene is not totally realistic (what courtroom scene is?), but it is incredibly dramatic. Burr smashing the oar on the boat? Come on! It's amazing. Then the final scene with the lovers is wonderful. Tragedy.
I'm not going to say it's not possible to pick at this film, but between the charisma of two of the hottest stars ever, shot and scored beatifully by George Stevens at the height of his powers, "A Place in the Sun" is an incredibly powerful movie. Subjectively, it hits me in the gut and heart. Objectively, it is perfect at depicting the universal desire for a life we can't have. A life where circumstances, and tragic or stupid choices, doom us to marry Shelley Winters or face ruin. It's is a beautifuly told tragedy.
A 19!
Good. It's more subjectivity than anything else. Good to see that my critical eye is still as sharp as ever!
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Taylor looks good, but I've had better.
Why does the audience have to pull for Clift? None of his actions or words make me hope for the best for the guy. He stumbles into all this good luck and through idiocy, screws up not only his life but the lives of others. He's an unapologetic creep. How can an audience root for that?
And just to clarify, I didn't say the courtroom scene was unrealistic. I believe I said it was ludicrous.
Facing the marriage of Shelley Winters is a universal possibility?
1.Name who is better than 1951 Elizabeth Taylor.
ReplyDelete2.Clift is an average guy wanting a better life. He is well mannered and nice enough in the beginning, and probably would have been a normal family man until 12 years later, when he divorced Winters. He is like almost all of us... flawed. He is a tragic figure because he reaches for the stars (or a place in the sun) and the stars conspire against him. He is a perfect tragic figure. I don't justify his actions, but we are made to understad them... and he pays for them.
3. Your "critical eye" missed the attempt at humor. Striving and wanting are universal. Shelley Winters is only inflicted on a select lucky few.
1. My wife!
ReplyDelete2. Flawed? Ok, but his "flaws" are far from typical. He uses somebody because he's horny until he finds somebody better (who, I would argue, he only "loves" because of her status) and then decides to murder somebody. I procrastinate, waste time, tell too many lies, and think I'm funnier than I am. Those are typical flaws. Using people and then deciding to dispose of them later by drowning them in a lake isn't typical, and it makes Clift much more of a bad guy than Gaston in 'Beauty and the Beast' so I don't think he's relatable or likable at all.
3. . . .
Jen looked over my shoulder and saw "My wife!" and asked about it. After I told her what that meant, she said, "I don't even look as good as Elizabeth Taylor does right now."
Since I work very hard at avoiding getting my ass kicked, I was restricting this to actresses only. Unless Jen has been in a film that I am unaware of, she would not be part of this comparison. Please say hi to her and tell her I think she is funnier than you, at least during this movie review.
ReplyDeleteAs far as liking or pulling for characters who do bad things, that is irrelevant and hypocritical since we could each probably list a hundred examples of them in film. It is too bad that you dislike Clift so much, because you missed a great movie experience.