I don’t remember when it happened or how it is I came to see
A Place in the Sun for the first time. I do remember how thoroughly I was hypnotized by the film and its lead
Montgomery Clift. It was the first time I'd ever seen him. I’ve long been of the mind that a movie lovers relationships to the most memorable of screen actors (everyone from Streep to Brando to Davis to
Taylor etc...) is largely defined by their first encounter or two. Feelings about various character actors can mutate and evolve. Leading actors who are not, in the end, altogether peppered with stardust can fluctuate in their connective power with an audience, too: they surprise on occasion and extend their run of fame but just as often they falter and fade quickly in the public consciousness. But with the true Movie Stars, the select few who stay larger than life and heavily mythologized… well, the first potent encounter sticks.
How else to explain that Montgomery Clift will always signify
A Place in the Sun to me even though I’ve seen several of his other films? I've found many of his other performances just as or more impressive --
Red River and
From Here to Eternity come immediately to mind. How else to explain that whenever I begin to think of him my thoughts eventually and invariable jump ship to La Liz -- and vice versa, too.
A Place in the Sun continues to occupy the most mental space in my Montgomery Clift fandom.
I’d intended to write about the offscreen relationship of Monty & Liz and their onscreen magic --that palpable flexible chemistry as witnessed in the three films they made together: For the uninitiated they were romantically paired in both
A Place in the Sun (1951) and
Raintree County (1957) and then played doctor and hysterical patient in the outré Tennessee Williams hit
Suddenly Last Summer (1959). But the hard-to-find
County conspired against my plans. So this will be the first edition of three Monty & Liz articles (the others will arrive in the distant future –as soon as I get my hands on a good copy of
County... so, um don't hold your breath)
Monty & Liz: A Place in the SunI thought he was the most gorgeous thing in the world, and easily one of the best actors. And he wasn’t a bit snide about acting with a ‘cheap movie star'.
-Elizabeth Taylor on Montgomery Clift
“I’ve found my other half!”
-Montgomery Clift on Elizabeth Taylor
One of the first things you notice about Clift is the distinctive way he holds his upper body: all pinched, shoulders hunched, like his entire body hangs from the knots in his neck. The stance of someone not entirely at home in his own skin? This physical quirk sparks tremendously well with the fuel that's already embedded in his signature role, George Eastman the dark and brooding outsider in this George Stevens masterpiece.
When we first spot Eastman he's hitchhiking into town, the up and coming nephew to a rich businessman uncle. He's there to join the family business but he's still very much the outsider: ostracized from co-workers (nepotism you know) and received with less than open arms by the rich society types his bloodline gives him access to --that is, with the notable exception of local princess Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), heir to another fortune.
Despite rules about fraternizing with the staff of his uncle's business, George almost immediately goes into predatory mode. He quickly beds a frumpy lonely employee, a factory girl named Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters). You can tell from the beginning that he's not thinking with his heart but somewhere south of there. George wants to get laid. It's a 50s movies but to its eternal angsty glory the sexual/romantic drives of all three principals come through loud and clear. George may be satisfying selfish urges with a worker bee but he's on his way up. The second he spots Angela, you know she's queen. His relationship with Alice is not long for this world.
Alice may be on her way out but boy is this movie on its way up. The yowza chemistry between the teasing trophy that is Liz Taylor and this fierce actor, all internal combustion and tragedy --notice that even his smiles are half-cocked... as if a full grin would cause pain-- sends
A Place in the Sun into the stratosphere of 50s movie heaven. Their whirlwind courtship leads to one of the cinema's greatest screen kisses
...and tragedy thereafter.
You seem so strange... so deep and far away. As if you're holding something back.
-Angela Vickers (Liz) to George Eastman (Monty)
For those inclined to enjoy readings of star performances through the distorting prism of what we know of their personal lives --in Clift’s case: addictions, homosexuality, depression, and "pathological compartmentalization" of his social life-- this also makes George Eastman and
A Place in the Sun an ideal vessel for carrying nearly all the crucial pieces of the Clift mythology. It's here in one classic package: implosive sensational talent (this was the second of four Oscar nominations) beauty you can drown in (boy is Shelley Winters is in trouble...in both senses of the word), self-destructive sexual behavior (George is living dangerously for an up and comer, isn't he?) and existential angst that doesn't overpower his charisma so much as inform it (check out how quickly Liz loses her ground as seductress to become both seduced and matronly, desperate to sex him up
and save him). Just about the only missing piece of the Clift myth is the homo eroticism but there's always
Red River for that.
A Place in the Sun also serves up a mirror of sorts in regards to Montgomery's place in the Hollywood firmament. The gorgeous black and white cinematography and machinations of the screenplay (both won Oscars) position George Eastman as a troubled and shadowy figure, a black sheep in this world of wealth and glamour. He unquestionably belongs there but is never fully absorbed into it, never at peace there. Isn't that Clift, too? Hollywood's ultimate troubled child is unquestionably one of the great film stars but he still exists somehow apart from the Brandos, Bogarts and even the Taylors in Classic Hollywood's pantheon.
the participating Clift-loving blogs
career overviews / his persona
Self Styled Siren "On the Manliness of Montgomery Clift"
The Sheila Variations A huge compendium of Monty related Hollywood quotes
My New Plaid Pants lusts for but doesn't quite love the man of the hour
Gallery of the Absurd 'If Montgomery Clift Were Alive Today' by "14" (previously interviewed right here) She always finds the details
Stinky Lulu 5 thoughts on the actor from fear to emotional adoption
individual star turns
Nick's Flick Picks looks deep into The Search
And Your Little Blog Too Monty's dexterous and intelligent work in The Heiress
Movie Morlocks "You would too recognize me" Monty in The Misfits
Peter Nellhaus on
The Young Lions
Eddie on Film "Hidden in Shadows" (A Place in the Sun)
Moon in the Gutter Wild River and Freud, the "missing masterpieces"
Goatdog Monty's 7-minute solo in Judgment at NurembergRants of a Diva Falling for Monty in The Search
A Blog Next Door Queering and dequeering in Suddenly Last Summer
Strange Culture Clift @ Court (A Place in the Sun & Nuremberg)
photos & video tributesIf Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger Great photos including one of my favorites of the actor taken by Stanley Kubrick himself
Ongoing Cinematic Education... YouTube -the Clash's "That's Montgomery Clift, Honey"
Boy on Film 'love of the pretty'
Stale Popcorn career cliff notes from YouTube
Rural Juror Saying goodbye to Monty
Episode 2.3 "The Benefactor"
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