Review of A Place in the Sun (1951) by Mike M — 21 Feb 2010

Astoundingly modern; more so today, in fact, than its so-called groundbreaking contemporary "A Streetcar Named Desire"... We may have Dreiser, or the Hays Office, to thank for the trace element of finger-wagging; somewhere in the material lurks a stern-faced lecture on the perils of succumbing to temptation.

What's remarkable is how the film makes the alternative - a life of virtue and righteousness, as represented by Clift's put-upon mama - seem drab indeed, and that it understands at no point can you fault the hero's logic: even the purest of hearts among us might have pause for thought when faced with the opportunity to upgrade from Shelley Winters to Liz Taylor, to swap cramped bedsits and abortion clinics for crystal-clear lakes and vacations on the Florida coast.

.. In the last half-hour, as the emotional carnage piles up and the corporations make the deals that will help protect their brand identity, it's worth keeping in mind that Clift and Winters spend their fateful first evening together in a cinema: the film grasps that in the modern world we are, all of us, looking for an escape - the tragedy here is how George Eastman sets about and eventually makes it.