Tony Maietta:
Hello. I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to going Hollywood.

Brad, before we begin, I want to say, and I forgot to say it last week, how much I appreciated you replicating Lucy's voice for our episode on Mame. And I'm wondering if you're going to carry it through to this week's episode and try to imitate Elizabeth Taylor's. Are you?

Brad Shreve:
Uh, after dealing with a summer cold for a week, Excuse me. I think I'm a little better. Excuse the cough. Um, unless we edited that out. But anyway, uh, I'm a little better. So no, I could not have imitated Lucy better had I tried.

Tony Maietta:
You know, I, I kick myself for not mentioning it during the podcast. So listeners, if you haven't listened to our last week's episode on the film Mame, do yourself a treat and go back and listen to it just to hear Brad sounding an awful lot like Lucille Ball. I mean, that was a deep, gravelly voice if ever I heard one, Brad.

Brad Shreve:
That was great.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I hope you don't try to imitate Liz's because, uh, yeah, it's just a bit high. But that is going about saying that our film for today is a very special film for me. It's, um, from Paramount in 1951, and it is called A Place in the Sun. And it was a listener recommendation from Calif Brett. from last year, and it's taken me a year to work up the courage to suggest it to Brad because it is indeed directed by Brad's favorite director, George Stevens. And we've had bad experiences with Mr. Stevens in the past. So I'm just girding my loins here.

Tony Maietta:
I hope it's not third. If it's third strike, we're out because I don't know. I don't wanna put anything in your mind, Brett. In your mind, Brad. But yes, I still, I thought after that kind of contemplation, I thought, you know what, this is such an important film. We need to talk about it. So I'm just gonna gird myself for Brad's opinion, which we'll get to, I'm sure, and talk about this film from 1951.

Brad Shreve:
Well, before we hit record, Tony said, well, I guess we're gonna hear what you have to say. I can't imagine you have anything bad to say about this film. I have a few things to say, but it is a brilliant film. But I do have, you know, I, I've been breaking the rule lately that I say I'm not going to compare a book to a movie.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
Uh, we are going to talk about, uh, making a movie from a novel, and it's not because of the changes to the story, but how I think, uh, a film needs to be adapted from a story. And there's where I have some challenges, which we will get into.

Tony Maietta:
So wait, are you telling me that you read An American Tragedy, the book this is based on?

Brad Shreve:
I didn't read American Tragedy, though I do know Sister Carrie and I've read some other Theodore Dreiser's novels. I am probably one of the only people I know that actually likes Theodore Dreiser because he was hugely popular in his day, but his novels are very long. This one was 250,000 words, which is about double what most people want. Usually a 250,000-word novel is going to be like something like Battlefield Earth or some kind of science fiction novel where there's, there's tons of world building. And, uh, for today's audiences, his novels can be very slow, uh, and a lot of information, um, but that's because he goes very deep into characters.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, and this The book An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, as Brad just said, was published in 1925. And it was actually, it was based on a real incident, a real murder. It was a 1906 killing of Grace Brown by one Chester Gillette. And I was reading that and I went, you know, okay, my mother's maiden name was Gillette.

Brad Shreve:
Okay.

Tony Maietta:
I'm actually distant— distantly related to the actor who played Sherlock Holmes, William Gillette. Oh, I mean, like way, way, way, way, because I found him on our family tree. Now I gotta go look for Chester because I'm thinking, all right, if it's not that common a name and this did happen, I believe it happened in the Northeast. So I'm like, oh God, am I related to this dude? It'd be very, very distant, I'm sure.

Brad Shreve:
Hey, we all have somebody in our past.

Tony Maietta:
Well, more than one. So this case, this sensational case, inspired the novel, and then it inspired a play called An American Tragedy in 1926. And then a film was made. Did you know this, Brad? There was a film made in 1931, a Pre-Code film called An American Tragedy that was made by Paramount, and it was a big disappointment. And that's something we'll talk about when we talk about the development of this film and why Stevens was drawn to it. But were you aware that there were—

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
that there was a previous version, kind of like Maltese Falcon. There was previous versions of this and people were like, don't do it, it doesn't work.

Brad Shreve:
I know there was a previous version. And in finding that out, I also learned there was a movie made of Sister Carrie, the other, the novel that I'm more familiar with. And I am desperate to read this novel and I'd be very interested to see the other film because it is pre-code.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, there were a couple different directors on that one. Von Sternberg ended up directing it. Ultimately got a lot of criticism. Dreiser disowned it. Dreiser disowned it, did not like it. He basically took out all of the social issues from the Dreiser book and made it a potboiler. Those were the criticisms of the time.

Brad Shreve:
You cannot take social issues from a Dreiser story.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly, exactly right. It's, it's, it's, that's what he does.

Brad Shreve:
And yes.

Tony Maietta:
It's called An American Tragedy. I mean, there's so much in that title that lets you know this is an American story. This is— this couldn't happen anywhere else but America for a few different reasons. So the— I guess my point was, was that just like when we talked about The Maltese Falcon, previous versions were not hits, but there came along a director who said, I know how to do this. And this was a real passion project for George Stevens. To make this film, this was the film he made after another one of Brad's favorite films, I Remember Mama. This was his follow-up to I Remember Mama. But what's most important, and this is all I'm gonna say, 'cause I've talked about Stevens several times on this podcast, after World War II and his involvement with his film corps in World War II and witnessing the horrors at Dachau, they were the first unit inside Dachau once it had been liberated.

Tony Maietta:
They also filmed D-Day. He filmed the only color footage we know to exist of World War II.

Brad Shreve:
Wow.

Tony Maietta:
After seeing those horrors, he never went back to comedy. He was a very, very well-respected comedy director, never made a comedy again after that. The rest of his films in his canon are all dramas, from this to Giant to The Diary of Anne Frank, on and on and on. So just interesting little side thing about George Stevens.

Brad Shreve:
Well, back to this novel, I will say one thing I'm really— not to the novel, this film. One thing I'm really impressed is, considering it's not Pre-Code, is how much they did stay true to Dreiser's themes that he typically writes in his novels. He's very critical of the American dream, very critical of class in society. He's very critical of the way society treats women, you know, that they're supposed to be sexual, but then they're punished for being sexual, you know, still going on, as we know.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
And especially working-class women. So that was all in here. The fact that they even got to a single pregnant woman who, even without having said the word, is looking into abortion was pretty amazing to me.

Tony Maietta:
It is.

Brad Shreve:
I was actually quite astonished.

Tony Maietta:
It is pretty amazing. And one of the reasons that scene got past the PCA was because she didn't mention abortion.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
I don't know if there— I mean, they were still worried about it, but I don't know if there's an American film made before 1967, '68, which mentioned the word abortion. I don't think there was. There were Pre-Code ones that talked about it, but I don't believe— and that was a real sticking point, and they were very nervous about that. But it also gives the scene a lot of tension because Shelley Winters, who plays the part of Alice— we'll go through the cast in a bit— that's one of the tense points in it is because she can't tell the doctor what she wants.

Brad Shreve:
Right.

Tony Maietta:
because of the PCA and also because of the time period. And some of the real tension in that scene is her trying to, you know, manipulate her way with this doctor to get what she wants, even though she can't come out and tell him what she wants. So it's an example of when the PCA actually helped tell a story. It's funny, that happens sometimes. It really happened with Auntie Mame, as we said before.

Brad Shreve:
Well, it was very believable. I mean, she— how does she ask for something without asking for it? I agree. One thing I thought was strange is I did read that one of the ways they got it passed is they changed the line from, Doctor, you've got to help— it was originally something like, Doctor, you've got to help me, to where she changed it in the film. You may know the exact words, but something like, somebody's got to help me, or something. I'm like, I don't see how that could be that big of a difference, but who knows? I don't— I, you know, I wasn't on the board.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know the specific line. I don't know the specific line you're talking about, but it's hard to believe something, a vagary like that would tip it. I just know they couldn't say abortion. And the fact that they were depicting somebody basically asking for one—

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Had some huge balls here to do this and make sure this would get through. But this film kind of tipped the line with a lot of that stuff. So let's talk about this movie and then we'll get into all the background and all the stuff we do, because there's a lot of scenes I want to talk about which are just unbelievable to me, these performances. Do we want to go through the cast? We haven't even talked about the cast really of this 1951 film from—

Brad Shreve:
Sure, sure.

Tony Maietta:
Do you want to read off the cast?

Brad Shreve:
It seems like we have, to me, what seems like a very small cast with a whole lot of secondary characters. We have the star of the film, Montgomery Clift, playing George Eastman. He is a poor, ambitious young man. related to the wealthy Eastman family and starts working for them to try and basically move up the ladder, as well as becomes infatuated with a society girl played by Elizabeth Taylor, who happens to be Angela Vickers. And I never did figure out what the Vickers family did other than they had a big neon sign outside of his window.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Did they ever say what her family's businesses?

Tony Maietta:
They never say what the Vickers, what the Vickers do, but of course, you know, it's, they're pretty important in that town.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
And just by the fact that their name is constantly flashing outside Montgomery Clift's bedroom. I kept, I'm like, hello, symbolism, symbolism.

Brad Shreve:
I kept wondering if I was missing something. So anyway, um, Elizabeth Taylor is Angela Vickers. Uh, she's beautiful, wealthy, young socialite. Uh, she falls in love with George. Uh, but doesn't know that he has this relationship with another young lady I'm about to get to. And I didn't find Elizabeth all that interesting in this film. We'll get to that. And it's not Elizabeth's fault, okay? Um, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not Elizabeth's fault.

Brad Shreve:
Then we have Shelley Winters, who was wonderful. And I have to admit, it was halfway through the film before I realized it was Shelley Winters.

Tony Maietta:
Oh really?

Brad Shreve:
That's interesting. This woman is driving me crazy. Who is that? Who is that? And then I realized it was Shelley Winters. There was a close-up of her face and I'm like, oh my God, it's Shelley Winters. Shelley is very awkward like— Alice Tripp is very awkward like George. She's a lonely factory worker and she begins a secret relationship with George. As we said, she becomes pregnant, wants him to marry her. Um, it's frightened, desperate.

Brad Shreve:
It's, it's very sad. She plays it very well. Uh, my, my heart bled for this woman. Uh, it was very sad when, um, she died. She was— she, uh, wasn't murdered, but she was murdered. Uh, we'll, we'll talk about that.

Tony Maietta:
We'll get to that. Do you know who Shelley Winters is? You know, this last time, these last few times I watched it, do you know who Shelley Winters reminds me of in this film? It's so silly, but watch it again and you'll see it totally. She reminds me of Penny Marshall in Laverne and Shirley. I mean, she is Laverne. The way she holds herself, the way she whines, the way she dresses. Laverne is obviously a comical version of this part.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
She also works in a factory. It's so funny. I was like, I wonder if Penny Marshall did that, or that's just who Penny Marshall was. But anyway, I thought, yeah, Shelley Winters, her first time playing this type of role, by the way, and she continued for the rest of her career to play roles of women, females that you either wanted to kill or that got killed or died in some way because they were just so freaking annoying. But that's what we're gonna say right now about that. Go on.

Brad Shreve:
Then we had Herbert Hayes who played Charles Eastman. This is George's wealthy uncle. George goes into town and goes to his uncle and gets a job as a mailroom clerk to get started with the company. And, and, uh, in the film we see him at least move up once. I think that's all we saw. Then we had, uh, Katherine Givney, who played Louisa Eastman, George's, um, wife.

Tony Maietta:
Not George's wife.

Brad Shreve:
We had—

Tony Maietta:
No, no, no, no, no, not George's wife.

Brad Shreve:
Oh no, no, I'm sorry, not George's wife, Charles's wife.

Tony Maietta:
Charles's wife.

Brad Shreve:
George's aunt.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, sorry. Uh, then we had, uh, Keith Brazell. Brazell. Brazell. Uh, he played Earl Eastman, Very, uh, I felt like his role probably is more fleshed out in the novel. George is Wealthy's cousin. Uh, we have George's mother, who is played by Anne Revere, and she is a deeply religious, uh, woman who comes from almost a cultish background, which, uh—

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Again, one of my issues with the film is because you have the limitations of a film. I would have liked to have known more about her.

Tony Maietta:
She's a missionary.

Brad Shreve:
Which is one of the reasons.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly.

Brad Shreve:
She's a missionary. Yeah, she's a missionary. And I don't know if you know, this film was her final film for about 20 years. She was blacklisted.

Tony Maietta:
She was, yes, she was. She was out of films for a very, very long time.

Brad Shreve:
And then we have Raymond Burr, a very quick role but important role. He was the district attorney who prosecutes George for murdering Shelley Winters' character. And like, Alice. Alice, thank you. Alice. I could not for the life of me think of her name. Am I missing— there's so many other cast members. Am I missing anybody that really should stand out?

Tony Maietta:
No, I think you got the— Fred Clark is the attorney. Fred Clark, who was Mr. Babcock in the original, uh, Auntie Mame. Um, that's about it. Those are, those are the main players. But you know, the first 3, 4 are the most important, obviously. Shelley Winters, Elizabeth Taylor, and of course, ultimately, Mr. Montgomery Clift as George Eastman.

Brad Shreve:
And I, and I cannot look at Fred Clarke without thinking of him, uh, with Bea Bernadette on the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. I loved him as one of the 3 or 4 Harrys they had on that series.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. See, I can't look at him without thinking of, that's enough candy, dear.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, not you, Mr. Babcock. You can have all you want. Oh, and he takes it and he smiles.

Brad Shreve:
Miles.

Tony Maietta:
Anyway, uh, so this film was produced and directed by George Stevens. Pause for Brad.

Brad Shreve:
I didn't groan, did I?

Tony Maietta:
You didn't groan. Cinematography was by William Mellor. The screenplay was by Michael Wilson and Harry Brown, again based on the book An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. 2 more very important things, uh, the score by Franz Waxman, which is one of the most beautiful scores I think certainly of the 1950s.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
It's a gorgeous, gorgeous score. And most importantly, we've got to mention her, first of all, because Michael would kill me if I didn't— costumes by Edith Head, one of the most iconic costume directors in golden— in the Golden Age of Hollywood. She was— she did costumes, you know, the year before for Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve. I mean, she did— she did everything at Paramount, but she also moved around. Elizabeth Taylor loved her. After this film, they became incredibly close friends. And what's important about, about these costumes, besides the fact that they're gorgeous, is that the dress that Elizabeth Taylor wears in the very first scene, you know, the white, uh, it was a white with white party dress with the bust covered with flowers and tulle.

Brad Shreve:
It looked like a modern wedding dress because they tend to be much more informal these days.

Tony Maietta:
Well, it became the most popular prom dress in the United States in 1951, and it influenced prom dresses and wedding dresses designs for the rest of the decade. So you'll see them all through the '50s. My mother had one when she wore them to her prom, and my mother's prom was like in 1958, so it was still happening. But all the costumes, everything that, that Head does for Elizabeth Taylor in this film, and also for Montgomery Clift, and also for, uh, Shelley Winters, Incredible, incredible stuff. So we all— we had to, had to mention Edith Head. So this film, I, I— we want to go through a little bit of the plot about it, but I just want to say it did win 6 Academy Awards in, in 1951.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
And we'll go through them at the end when we're talking about the legacy of this film. But I think I want to point out from the very beginning that the one that it did not win was the biggie. It did not win Best Picture of 1951. And you're nodding your head. You know what won, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I do. An American in Paris.

Tony Maietta:
An American in Paris beat A Place in the Sun. Now, I know there's lots of American in Paris people out there who love that movie. I personally do not. I think it's probably the weakest of the Minnelli, uh, Gene Kelly collaborations, but it did win. You can't— it's a mythic film, I get it. But to beat A Place in the Sun after they won director and screenplay and everything else. But wait a minute.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
But you're not gonna get production. Okay. Makes no sense.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Makes no sense. Makes no sense. So we talked a little bit about what this movie is based on. Should we— and we talked a little bit about the plot. I think I just wanna give a little boiler point about the plot. Just like hit little things. I'm not gonna tell you the whole plot. Never do.

Tony Maietta:
But I just want to say, so in this film version of this story, because it is different from the novel— oh, and you know, in the novel, Brad, you were talking about how you wish there had been more backstory for the mother and for his childhood. The first half of the novel is that. The first half of the novel is all about George's childhood.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
But obviously, as you said, it's a movie, can't do that. And I believe Steven takes care of that whole thing being gone in one great scene, which we'll talk about.

Brad Shreve:
And that's actually, when we get to it, that, that's my big critique of this film.

Tony Maietta:
Okay. So, so George Eastman, Mr. Montgomery Clift, is a World War II vet and a poor young man who gets a factory job through his wealthy uncle. He secretly begins dating a fellow factory worker, Alice Tripp, Shelley Winters, and his fortunes change when he meets the glamorous socialite Angela Vickers, played by the stunning Elizabeth Taylor in this film. 17 years old.

Brad Shreve:
17.

Tony Maietta:
Do you remember what you looked like at 17? I remember what I looked like at 17, and I'll tell you right now, it wasn't anything like Montgomery Clift or Elizabeth Taylor. So torn between his obligations to Alice, because guess what? Alice is pregnant suddenly, and his desire for not only for Angela but for the life that being with Angela would provide him— hello— his place in the sun, he makes a series of increasingly desperate choices that eventually culminate in— isn't a murder, isn't a murder, but definitely a murder trial, a guilty verdict, and he's sent to the electric chair. And that's where this uplifting film ends, with George on his way to the electric chair. It is just a devastating, devastating indictment on the moral ambiguity and the vagaries of the American dream. Because we're all told, oh, that's the big thing about being in America is you can make yourself whatever you want to. Well, you can, but it ain't that easy. Okay? It's still a very, very difficult thing to do, and so many people can't do it. And what I love about this film is that This is a child of this— he's basically the nephew of one of the biggest titans of industry, of a titan of industry in this town.

Tony Maietta:
And he's still treated like the other. He is not welcomed even though he's related. But because he's related, he gets a foot in. But he is still struggling and struggling and struggling. And the things he does in this film are because he wants that place in the sun. He wants that American dream that he believes he's entitled to. It's really kind of more an American nightmare as far as I'm concerned in this film. You know what I think it reminds me of? It's Icarus.

Tony Maietta:
I think this is the American Icarus. Icarus is the Greek god who had wings and flew too close to the sun and his wings burned and he fell and he laughed as he fell.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And that's who Montgomery Clift is in this film. He's the American Icarus because of his hubris, because of his belief that he can attain— and he's Montgomery Clift, you think he could— he could attain the utmost in society. That hubris eventually led to his downfall and his ultimate destruction, just like Icarus.

Brad Shreve:
I think that's a good analogy. Yes, indeed it is. I wonder why they changed it from An American Tragedy to A Place in the Sun. Is it because it just, uh—

Tony Maietta:
Because the first one was a bomb.

Brad Shreve:
Ah, to separate itself. Okay, that makes sense.

Tony Maietta:
To separate itself. Yeah, they came up— they had a few different working titles, uh, when they began, one of which was Steven wanted to call it The Prize because that's who Elizabeth Taylor is in this film. She is the prize in every sense of the word. There was also, um, I mean, has there ever been— this is my feeling about it— this movie so perfectly cast? Could you imagine a more representative idea of what the American dream was than Elizabeth Taylor at this time? Not only being the most beautiful, truly the most beautiful woman in the world at this time, but young and 17 and happy and Oh my God, it's so incredible. So he was going to call it The Prize. They were also going to call it An American Tragedy or A Modern Story. But producer Ivan Moffat remembered a speech he heard. This is interesting.

Tony Maietta:
A pre-World War I German speech he remembered in which the chancellor said that Germany deserves its place in the sun. And he thought, oh, that's the title of our movie, A Place in the Sun. So kind of circuitous way of getting it, but Perfect title.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, it is. Very much, very much. So I, I want to go ahead and get out of the way my challenge with the film because I don't want to end like making it sound like I don't like this film.

Tony Maietta:
Hopefully we won't lose Califf Brett. Go ahead.

Brad Shreve:
No, Califf Brett, thank you for recommending this film. I'm glad I saw it. It was a good film. But I did— there were more— there were things I wanted to scream about. And here, okay, here's what it is. I don't complain about a movie being different than a book because you have to make changes. Obviously, this, this book was 250,000 words. How do you fit that into a 2-hour movie? You have to make changes, and I don't think they made the changes that they should have made.

Brad Shreve:
And here's— I'm going to explain.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
You know when you're around somebody that's really awkward and it just is really uncomfortable to be around them?

Tony Maietta:
Frequently.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Today, Maurice and I went to our favorite restaurant. We love the staff there. We love the food. But there's one server there. She's very quirky. She's very awkward. She's friendly, but she makes us a little edgy.

Brad Shreve:
And we were kind of glad she wasn't there today. And I'm sitting there, I'm watching George, and I'm really uncomfortable watching George. And I'm supposed to be. He's a quirky, weird person. The same thing With Shelley Winters' character Alice. They're both— Alice especially is very inward, very quirky. They're both uncomfortable people to be around. Like, if you went out and had a dinner with them, it would be kind of awkward.

Brad Shreve:
What is missing in this film is the first half of that novel, because the— his— this novel, like his other novels, begins begins, how did he grow up? How did he become that way? And I'm going to refer to Sister Carrie. People hated Sister Carrie because it's, you know, when I was in literature class, people thought it was slow and boring. But I cared a lot about Carrie because I knew where she came from. And I felt that way about George, but I didn't care enough because I didn't know enough about his background. I knew a little bit, we were getting teases, but really didn't get a When he sat down for 90 minutes into the film, I think it was, where he was telling, um, Elizabeth Taylor's father about his background, we got bits and pieces about his mother, but that was the really the first time. I'm like—

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
So I don't know what the answer would've been. I don't know because of the time constraint, but somehow there needed to be more to make me understand and accept George Eastman rather than just being irritated by him and how quirky and weird and me not liking him. And I think there are things that could have been done to it, and I'm gonna just blow people's mind right now. One of them is cut back on some of Elizabeth Taylor's scenes.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I mean, you can't do that. Come on.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, you could have.

Tony Maietta:
Well, here's the— okay, now here's my argument with that. I, I, I'm surprised to hear that because I think it's taken care of. Surely because of the man that George Stevens cast in this film. I think that, you know, as we said a million times, you know, half of the job of a director is casting the right person. You can't get an actress more emblematic of the American dream, of the prize, than Elizabeth Taylor in 1951 at age 17. You can't. And with, with, as far as George goes, yes, we don't get the entire backstory of his life with his mother and the missionary. But you cast Montgomery Clift.

Tony Maietta:
And what do we say about Montgomery Clift in The Heiress? His natural charm, his sensitivity, his soulfulness automatically informs that character of George. If it was a different actor who didn't come to the table with those qualities, we'd be much worse off. But you get from Clift, just from that very opening shot when he's back to the camera and then he turns around and we see that face, face. Jesus, that face. And he's looking at the billboard and just— and then Angela goes by in her car and you just, you get from him just in his eyes. I get from him in his eyes. You get so much of his story because he's Montgomery Clift, because he brings all of that stuff with him. So maybe we don't know specifically about the missionary stuff, but we know this is a man who had a troubled past and— because he's hitchhiking, you know, so there's something right there.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
And the second thing we know is, and this is another thing, here we go again, padding a character. What does it bring to the table? George is a man with a secret. Well, who does he cast but a man with a big secret? And that's what's so brilliant about the casting in this and what Stevens does. Stevens' affinity was for the outsider.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
George is an outsider. I hesitate to mention it, but Alice Addams— Alice is an outsider.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Giant— Jimmy Dean is an outsider, all the way up to the biggest outsider of them all, Jesus Christ, in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Stevens liked to tell the story of outsiders. So yes, I agree with you, we don't get the exact literal background of George, but we get the important, the salient points, I feel. That's my opinion of it.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I mean, I'm just gonna say my last thing on it because I, I don't want to make it sound like I dislike this movie. I just really think it could have shown, you know, you know, I always like to look at, look at the diamond and see how they, how could they have polished it better. And this is one where I really think it could have been much, much better. Montgomery Clift was excellent. He was excellent as the awkward character. But, you know, I want— I'm sitting there and I'm watching, I'm like, you have this very awkward character who seems like he stumbles over every other word. At the same time, he's very forward with Alice. And so there was that, you know, and we all have—

Tony Maietta:
Well, comfort level.

Brad Shreve:
Differences in our personalities depending on who we're with and that sort of thing. But I wanted to know, I, I didn't feel like I knew enough about him. And again, I know that's really hard to do in a 2-hour movie. I just think something could have been done differently. I don't have the answer to that. I wish they would've made me like him a little bit more. Not necessarily like him as a person, but like him as a character a little bit more.

Tony Maietta:
I think though—

Brad Shreve:
That's all.

Tony Maietta:
I don't see— I find him, you know, considering he is an outsider and he is coming into this enormous wealth, into this world he has no knowledge of. By the way, he was living with a missionary. So not only was he poor, but he was living in a mission.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Into this world of the uber wealthy. I think he did pretty damn good other than wearing a very bad suit in the very first scene. What's he gonna do? He doesn't know better.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
I think he's very— when he comes to the party the second time and he meets Angela, I think he's very, very calm. He just doesn't know anybody, so he's awkward and he wants to start conversations. He wants to talk to people, but no one engages with him. He doesn't become awkward and distant until he finds out Alice is pregnant, and then he really does have something on his mind. Throughout this film, Elizabeth Taylor says to him, where are you? You're far away. What are you thinking about? A penny for your thoughts. And it's because, you know, he just found his dream right in front of him, Elizabeth Taylor. And just through happenstance, he had got Shelley Winters pregnant.

Tony Maietta:
So it's, it's, it's like, oh really? I mean, it's like timing, you know what I mean? You wanna go, yeah, really? I mean, you couldn't have waited a week or you couldn't have— I couldn't have met Angela a week before I went— I impregnated this girl. That's life. And that's what they had to deal with at the time.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
time. But, um, I, I, I don't know. I don't agree with you on that level, um, of him being awkward. I think he's only awkward when he realizes he's gotten a girl pregnant. So he's now, he's got a secret and then he air quotes kills her. He's got an even bigger secret. So I think to me, that's when he becomes, you know, the, the, uh, awkward character that you're talking about. My opinion.

Tony Maietta:
This is my opinion.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
So let's talk about a little bit— we talked— I talked a lot about George Stevens in our other films and his background, so I'm not going to go too much into it. He was from a family of actors. He began his career as an assistant cameraman to Hal Roach filming Laurel and Hardy comedies, had his big break with Alice Adams in 1935. And again, after he served in World War II, that was the end of his comedy career. He went on to these much more dramatic Impactful films. And what I think is amazing about what Stevens does in this film, and I said this before when we talked about other Stevens films, is Stevens is very famous for his close-ups. This film in particular has the most famous close-ups, I think, and I'll go to the mat on this, the most famous close-ups in film history.

Brad Shreve:
Wow.

Tony Maietta:
They are extreme. And what Stevens does though is he balances those with totally wide shots where the camera does not move at all. You see the entire scene and the camera doesn't move. And then he'll do the closeups, like we've earned those closeups.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
I'm thinking about the scene where Alice tells George, that she's pregnant. Remember, she makes his birthday cake for him, and it just happens to be the same night he meets Angela.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
At, at, at the Eastman's house. So he's late.

Brad Shreve:
Yep.

Tony Maietta:
That entire scene, from the moment she tells him that she's pregnant, is shot from behind both of them, and we don't see their face at all. That's incredible. First of all, it's incredibly brave. What balls.

Brad Shreve:
Yep.

Tony Maietta:
But it's also incredibly I find that astounding that a filmmaker would do that. We don't see their face. She's telling him right now she's pregnant. We don't see their face, but we get everything important in that scene. What do you think about that?

Brad Shreve:
It looks like Alice, Shelley Winters' character, took a hidden camera, put it in the corner of her little studio apartment, and turned it on.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And that's all she did. And I agree, it made the scene uncomfortable, for lack of a better word, as it should have been.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, yes. And you notice too with Stevens' shooting, first of all, Stevens shot everything. Everything. He took 40,000 feet of film of this movie.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And this film was actually filmed in late 1949, but it wasn't released until 1951 because it took him a year to edit it. And the reason it took him a year was because what Stevens would do was he would shoot every possible angle, every possible thing he could think of. And this drove— obviously drove the studio crazy. And then in the editing room, he would actually create the film. It's so much different than someone like Hitchcock, who actually had storyboards and knew exactly what he was shooting and exactly what he should— Stevens would actually— Stevens considered himself— his real job was in the editing. It wasn't necessarily with the camera, which is really a totally different way.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And it changed a lot of things. But the thing I love about What I love about his filming is that you have alternating those close-ups between really long static shots is the things he's telling you about the characters. The close-ups, these super romantic close-ups are almost always of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Almost always. The static ones are almost always of Shelley Winters or somebody else. So he's telling you that right there. And so many of these close-ups, did you get this?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
not the romantic ones with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, but other ones almost have a documentary feel to them. When he's running through the woods and he comes upon that guy and the guy says, are you George Eastman? I was like, who's that guy?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, it looked like it was out of a Rossellini film.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
You know what I mean? It was like Open City. It's so— it was so— you're like, ooh, that really startled me when I saw that. And I love the Stevens Varys His camera work like that, it gives such great, great variety to this film and, and tells the story for you in so many ways that are just perfect.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, this was painful to watch, and I mean this in a good way. And a lot of that, not even realizing it until looking at it afterwards, as you're saying, is the camera shots establishing that mood, establishing something we're not used to seeing filmed the way He's presenting it to us in a way that he's a master at doing it. I gotta admit it, George sold me on this one.

Tony Maietta:
And he also did the long dissolves. Did you notice that? Very frequently, because you have 3 people here, the camera will go from Angela, from Elizabeth Taylor, and slowly dissolve into Montgomery Clift, and then slowly dissolve into Shelley Winters. It's so amazing because he's telling you about this triangle of these people. You know, they're all in each other's lives even if they don't know it. So he does these long dissolves as they're affecting each other. And there's this one amazing dissolve where George and Angela are at her Lake Tahoe house and they're having a great time and they're at the lake, Lake Loon, Angela's lake.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And the film slowly starts to dissolve and it's Shelley Winters walking, she's at home, walking to her mailbox, and for like maybe 3 seconds you get the image of Shelley Winters in the middle of this lake, and then the film slowly dissolves to where it's just Shelley Winters, and you're like, oh my God.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Because Shelley Winters ends up in that lake. It's this kind of storytelling elements which you might not know watching it but which affect you are what made Stevens such an astounding director. In my opinion.

Brad Shreve:
I also noticed in the, uh, the trial scenes, they were, they were almost erratic.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Uh, and, and purposeful.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Um, they weren't, uh, they weren't static shots there. They were, they were— it was like Raymond Burr's face and then the boat, you know, just, uh, well done.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
It was supposed to be uncomfortable and they made it uncomfortable.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it's beautiful. So I want to say a little bit about this cast, and then we'll talk about some, maybe some of our favorite scenes or some scenes that stood out to us, if that's okay.

Brad Shreve:
Sure.

Tony Maietta:
We talked about Cliff. This was his third film in his fifth film in 3 years. Elizabeth Taylor, 17. Other than a few films earlier in her career as a child, she had never left MGM. This was her first film away from MGM. And then we have Shelley Winters. Now, what I find fascinating about Shelley Winters is Shelley Winters is such a nudge. in this movie.

Tony Maietta:
She's so— such a pain in this movie. What Shelley Winters later became very famous for playing. But at this time, she was known— and we've talked about this before— she was known primarily as a sexpot, as a blonde sexpot. Isn't that crazy to think about Shelley Winters in that way?

Brad Shreve:
She wanted to shed that image, and boy, that she picked a role that really— it was hidden.

Tony Maietta:
It's very funny too. She tells a story about she saw that she really, really wanted to do this role and he wouldn't give her a screen test because he's like, you're Shelley Winters, you're, you know, you're the sex— you're the sexpot. Didn't I just see you as a slave in that movie over at Universal? And she really, really lobbied for the part. So she said she had one day off and she was going to meet him in the lobby, I think, of the Hollywood Athletic Club, but he wasn't gonna give her a screen test. He said, I'll just meet with you and talk with you. So, she immediately went out, dyed her hair brown, went to a department store, bought an old drabby dress, got a paper bag, put a sandwich in it, and got to the lobby and sat in the corner and ate her sandwich. And George Stevens walked in, looked around, said, oh, she's not here. Went and sat and waited and waited and waited.

Tony Maietta:
And she just sat there eating her sandwich, didn't look at him. He got up, she's— he's like, well, I guess she's not coming. He goes to walk out and he walks past her and he stops and he looks and she looks up at him and he says, all right, if you agree to come like that, I will give you a screen test. And then he walked out.

Brad Shreve:
And she also said people on the— in the studio did recognize her at all.

Tony Maietta:
Did not recognize her. Well, no, 'cause she didn't look anything like that. And I mean, you know, we talked about it.

Brad Shreve:
She was like— No, that's true.

Tony Maietta:
She taught Marilyn Monroe glamour. I mean, Shelley Winters was not this type of character in her real life. It's so funny. But later on, so she did the screen test. He said, okay, you got the part, but you gotta promise me you're gonna hold onto this character. And she said though, that after a few weeks of watching Elizabeth Taylor and being in Elizabeth Taylor's presence, she started to feel the urges.

Brad Shreve:
She's like, yeah, I started to feel, mm, I gotta do something.

Tony Maietta:
She said, and Elizabeth Taylor talked—

Brad Shreve:
I gotta compete with this woman.

Tony Maietta:
She's like, I can't. getting an itch here, I gotta do something. So she got some of Elizabeth Taylor's, uh, eye makeup, some of her, um, you know, for her eyelashes to extend them a little bit. And George Stevens said, Shelley, what did we say? Because he knew it immediately. And she's like, okay, okay, okay, I won't do it, I won't do it, I won't do it. But you know, that's— she couldn't help herself. She was human and she was next to Elizabeth Taylor. But these 3 are so good together, even though Liz and Shelley just go through Montgomery Clift.

Tony Maietta:
They never meet each other. They never meet each other. Um, but that relationship between the 3 of them is just the heart and the soul of this film.

Brad Shreve:
You are making me nostalgic for something I didn't realize I missed, and that is Shelley Winters telling her stories on talk shows. She loved her storytelling.

Tony Maietta:
So funny.

Brad Shreve:
So, so Funny.

Tony Maietta:
So as I said, production on this film began in October of 1949 at Lake Tahoe. And the scenes they shot first were the scenes at Loon Lake, at Angela's Lake. And it was supposed to be August, but the crew arrived to find snow on the ground. So the crew actually had to hose off the snow before filming began. Oh, and Elizabeth Taylor actually went in that lake. So when she comes out saying how cold it is, how cold— she's not acting.

Brad Shreve:
Wow.

Tony Maietta:
She was really that cold in October. Clift refused to do it. He said, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. First of all, he was very self-conscious about his body. He's like, I'm not doing it. So he's not in the bathing suit, but she is, which I think is really fascinating. And they didn't know each other before filming began at all.

Tony Maietta:
In fact, he was like, who is this Elizabeth Taylor? Who's this starlet that I'm in this film with? And she was so intimidated by Clift. and his reputation and his acting style. But as they started to work together, Elizabeth Taylor began to fall in love. And this is the point, Brad, where I wanna bring on a special guest, because our special guest talks about what she experienced in those early days on the set of A Place in the Sun and how it affected her for the rest of her life. Uh, we got along as friends and then as actors. And for the first time in my life, I started to take acting seriously because my leading men before had been dogs and horses, and this was my first leading man and my first real actor. I thought, wait a minute, what's he doing? What's he up to? And I started to listen and realized that it was more than just cut, make some lines you'd learned the night before, hit your mark, you know. But it was more More than that, that it was something that could make this man shake from head to toe with emotion.

Tony Maietta:
I will always love Mommy. So that was her experience with him the first days. And she, you know, she always credited him. She said she wasn't an actress before. This film gave her, and working with Clift, gave her her first inkling of what an actress was like. You know, and acting against a real leading man and someone who wasn't a dog or a horse. So I think that's pretty remarkable. And, you know, for people who know, maybe, I don't know if they know this or not, you know, they were lifelong friends until his untimely death in '66.

Tony Maietta:
She saved his life when he had a very bad car accident. She reached in and pulled the teeth out of his throat when he was choking. So Clift truly affected her in many ways, but he encouraged her to dig into herself for the part of Angela. He said, this is a girl who is eager to take risks. She wants to experience everything in life. And you get that. I mean, Angela could have been just a vacuous, rich bitch, but she's not. You truly get that sense from Elizabeth Taylor, that sense of joy and discovery and fun.

Tony Maietta:
And you certainly get that thrill of passion of first love.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Don't you think?

Brad Shreve:
Well, she, she was incredibly, incredibly charming and fun. And yeah, I mean, you would think that when everyone else was kind of like, you know, what's he doing here? She was never that way. She was open. She, you know, I, I wish she either had a bigger role or a smaller role. I said that I, I would have liked her at a smaller role because of the way the film was made. But, uh, I would like to have seen more of her at the same time. That's— I don't know if that makes sense.

Tony Maietta:
The first moment they see each other, I always think is so amazing. And I also think it's very interesting that she, she has met him on one other occasion, but she didn't remember it. And she only remembers meeting him when he's kind of dressed the way he's supposed to be dressed at their house. Because the first time she meets him, or she sees him, he's in that horrible suit the very first time he gets into town.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And then when he's at the party and he's in that beautiful black, um, it's not even a tux, but it's still a beautiful black suit and he's playing pool and she sees him and she literally goes, wow. And then she looks at him. I'm just saying wow because of his pool playing. But then she looks at him and her face says, wow. And that's when she really sees him. And from then on, she is so delightfully charming and warm with him and just so She's so sweet. How could you not love this character? And this is the influence Clift had on her acting and her development of this character. And needless to say, you know, she did absolutely fall in love with him.

Tony Maietta:
And she admitted freely that in her mind, she wanted him to be the first man she ever had sex with. She even invited him into her dressing room while she was taking a bath so they could, air quotes, go over lines. And she said, To her amazement, he went over lines.

Brad Shreve:
That's all he did. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And she, you know, so hello, we all know about— we know about Montgomery Clift. We know that he was, he was gay, or at least bisexual. But that kind of thing, she said he was the first man who ignored her body and actually cherished the person inside. So that made her fall in love with him even more. So that works so well. in this relationship with George and Angela, because that's what her character's feeling. He's holding back. There's some kind of weird secret with George.

Tony Maietta:
He's not giving her all she wants, and that makes her love him even more. That kind of enigmatic mystery of this character. And that's Clift. That— and that's Taylor. That's why those— that's why they work so well together in this film.

Brad Shreve:
I'll tell you where I was most impressed with her was when He was talking to her father and was telling his background, his difficult background, being a kid on the streets and that kind of thing. And the way she played it, that it didn't matter to her, but it wasn't played like that— it endeared— well, it certainly endeared her father to him that George was so upfront.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
But she was the same way, but the way she played it, I felt was very realistic. And I, you know, it could have been either like, oh, you know, it could have been overdramatic, and this could have been just as much directing as her, but I think it's her.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
It could have been overdramatic, like, oh, I, I love him so much more, you know, of what he's accomplished, or it could have come across very pat. And no, it was just It was very charming and it endeared me to her more so than even just endearing to him, knowing what he came from.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, they're so real. There's such a reality to their relationship, to them, you know, to their interactions, I guess. I don't want to say to their acting.

Brad Shreve:
They're just natural. To put it simply, I didn't feel acting.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, exactly. I, and I do honestly believe that is the influence of Clift on Taylor. You know, I, I know for sure it is because this was a woman, she was 17 years old. And, you know, Stevens was no, no dummy. He saw this incredible erotic attraction that they were having with each other because Clift admitted to being attracted to her too, soulfully, you know, so not maybe not necessarily physically, but certainly emotionally attracted to her. And so he actually rewrote scenes in the film so he could capture that. And he closed the set for all of their most intimate scenes. And of course, the most famous one is when they talk about when they admit they love each other, because this is only their second date.

Tony Maietta:
You know, she goes and picks him up and brings him back to the house and they're dancing. And he already knows that Shelley Winters is pregnant. So he's very distracted being there.

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
And she, Elizabeth Taylor, Angela, is asking him, what is it, George? What's, what's on your mind? And he says he loves her, and then she confesses that she loves him. But before she does, there's an incredible scene where she starts to tell him, and then she breaks up and she looks and goes, are they watching us? And she looks right at the camera. Did you notice that?

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
And then they run off. Stevens told her, look right at the camera because we want the audience to feel like we're voyeurs. Like we're intruding. This is such a private moment between you two, which is an incredible thing when she looks right at the camera and she runs. And then they have the scene out on the porch where she confesses she loves him. And then you have the most soulful, erotically charged kiss, uh, I think I've ever seen on screen. And you don't even see the kiss. You don't even see it.

Tony Maietta:
Isn't it amazing? Because it's shot from behind. What do you think of that?

Brad Shreve:
I think it's— I You know, it tells me George Stevens has redeemed himself. Now, he doesn't have to do it for me, but in my eyes, he has.

Tony Maietta:
For the, the physical act of 2 people's lips locking, okay, we've all seen that. That's not what the scene's about. No, the scene is about the passion in Elizabeth Taylor's eyes that she was really experiencing. And somebody said, you know, she was really feeling this because she was not a method actress. And she wasn't old enough that she could have developed this in her craft where she could create a passion out of nothing. So she was really feeling this passion, and Stevens is right there with his camera. And he also doesn't show us the kiss because it's not about the physical act of lips locking. It's about this soulful connection these two feel.

Tony Maietta:
That's what you feel between them. They never have sex in this movie, and yet they're ready to die for each other.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
It's that connection. It's that soulful connection, which I think, you know, through those close-ups and through the fact that he had an actress and an actor who were really feeling those emotions, it's so powerful. It just jumps off the screen.

Brad Shreve:
It kind of goes back to what we were talking about last week when we were talking about in the— in Auntie Mame, they talked about the kids' school.

Tony Maietta:
Right, right.

Brad Shreve:
And in, in the main version, they showed the school and it was much better when we pictured in our own mind. And they did this in horror movies a lot. Now, a lot of time in horror movies it's because they don't have the, the budget, but a lot of times it's on purpose. And that is when you don't see the monster, and sometimes that's much more terrifying than when you see the monster.

Tony Maietta:
Oh yeah, yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And I remember Lana Turner, I think she was— bring up Johnny Carson again— I think she was on Johnny Carson and he was being asked about the updated version Of a Postman Always Rings Twice. And she's saying that she thought it was much sexier back in the days when you faded to black.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And that's what we're talking about here. Let the mind do its job because sometimes the visual is distracting.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, people would—

Brad Shreve:
And that's what he did here.

Tony Maietta:
People would frequently laugh in Kisses at this time because, because you really couldn't show anybody making any other kind of love, making any other kind of sexual act.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Kissing was what you could do. And too frequently the kisses would become overly passionate and audiences would actually laugh. So what Stevens does here is he gives us this incredible passion without even showing us the kiss. But we know it. We know it by the way her— the way she looks at him, by the way the camera is behind him and that music. Uh, it's just, it's, it's such an It's so powerful. It's so powerful. It just, it's amazing to me.

Tony Maietta:
The things that he does in this, you know, like for example, Angela is a place in the sun. You know, if you notice, mostly all of the times that Clift and Taylor are together are outdoors or at night or another, they're brightly lit. They're at parties.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
They're outdoors. It's during the day. They're at the lake. Well, when he's with Shelley Winters, it's usually nighttime and they're dark. And if it's not in a— if it's not outside in the dark, it's in a car. There's that one scene where after she sees the doctor for the abortion and all you see is Shelley Winters' face, just her face. It's just blackness all around her. And I mean, the things that Stevens is saying about a place in the sun versus, you know, a place somewhere else.

Tony Maietta:
It's incredible to me. You might not notice it when you're watching it, like, oh, I see what he's doing there. But then when you think about it, he's telling us this story in so many ways other than through this script. And that's what's astounding to me.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Astounding to me.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. It's a visually beautiful film. He captures what needs to be captured. He doesn't capture when it doesn't need to be captured.

Tony Maietta:
So when after George, uh, so, so Shelley Winters is pregnant, Alice is pregnant, she breaks up his idyllic weekend with Angela and her family, and she's at the bus station. He has to come get her. She's really, really pushing it here. Um, she's gonna tell if they don't get married. And so he go— they go to go to the justice—

Brad Shreve:
Well, can you blame her?

Tony Maietta:
Well, I can't. You really can't. And it's 1950 or '49, so I mean, it's not like she can say, I'll get rid of the baby. She can't. She tried. She can't.

Brad Shreve:
And it's not like there's much of a future ahead of her trying to work and be a single mother.

Tony Maietta:
So they go— he takes her the next day to the justice of the peace in this little town called Warsaw. But wouldn't you know it, it's Labor Day, and the justice of the peace's office is closed. And all this time, he's been hearing about people, accidents on the street. It's Labor Day holiday, people drowning. Angela told him about this couple that drowned in her lake, in Lewin Lake, and he's been having these ideas about how exactly to get rid of this Shelley Winters problem he has. As they're walking down the hall of the courthouse, they stop and he says to her, let's just take advantage of this. Let's go have a picnic. Let's enjoy the day.

Tony Maietta:
You know, maybe go out on the lake. And as he's saying that, did you notice the courtroom is right behind him? The courtroom where he will be tried for the murder of Alice. It's right behind him.

Brad Shreve:
No, I didn't catch that.

Tony Maietta:
George Stevens.

Brad Shreve:
So good.

Tony Maietta:
So he takes her out on the lake, he gives her this new name, and it's just such a terrifying scene because you really don't know what he's gonna do. I mean, he's very, very conflicted about this whole plan he has in motion, and she just keeps getting more and more annoying and more and more annoying. And then he gets up and goes to the back of the boat, and he realizes, I can't do this to a human being. And she gets up And the boat capsizes and she drowns and he escapes. So mission accomplished, sort of.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
He didn't, air quotes, murder her as he had planned to, but he also didn't try to save her. And, you know, he eventually gets caught. He's brought to a trial. And the last part of the film is his trial with Raymond Burr. And you talked a little bit about that, the trial scene. And did you know that originally it was created so it was going to be more of a suspenseful scene? Like, is he guilty? Isn't he guilty? And then again, because Steven took so much footage, as he was editing it, he said, no, the real story here isn't did he do it, didn't he do it? The real story here is that his death is inevitable. You know, his guilt, he's caught in the machines of the court system. He's going to be found guilty.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And that it's like that fate, it's like an inescapable fate. And that's kind of what leads you through the rest of the film till he does, he goes to the electric chair.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And, uh, back to Shelley Winters, I gotta say there's 2 times that I really— you know, through most of this film she was pretty bland. And I, and I, I mean, I don't mean that in a bad way, that her character was just a bland character. She didn't have a lot of emotion. She just was— she's not somebody you'd want to hang out with, I'll tell you that. But the 2 times that The 2 times that she really wowed me was one, the doctor's office. You just could feel the pain of this woman. The other time was when they went to— went and showed up at the courthouse and it was closed.

Brad Shreve:
Because that look of just anguish, like, oh, I finally was going to get this taken care of. I finally was going to get married so that, you know, at least things were moving forward.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And she hit another brick wall. And even though it seemed like a small thing, wait a few days, when you're in a situation like that and you're desperate and you just want to get something, she played that so well.

Tony Maietta:
She did. She's so good in this. She really is so freaking good in this, you know. And it really did start her career as playing these kind of annoying, ill-fated characters that she played over and over again through the rest of her career. I'm glad you mentioned that, the scene in the doctor's office, because that reminded me of something I wanted to say. And you're right, she's heartbreaking in that scene. And as they were filming it, she kept getting weepy and she kept getting weepy and starting to cry. And Steven said, cut, do it again, cut, do it again.

Tony Maietta:
Finally, he got fed up. He said, Shelley, the minute you start crying, I'm cutting the camera off you. So if you want to be in this scene, don't cry. So Shelley Winters plays—

Brad Shreve:
Mm-hmm.

Tony Maietta:
And here's what's genius about that. So what is Alice doing in that scene? What is the character doing? Trying not to cry. And her director just gave her the direction not to cry. So the actor is doing exactly what the character is doing. I mean, it's a— that's George Stevens, you know, that's just the genius. That's a genius thing. And that's what gives that— that's what gives that scene such potency is because she's trying to hold it together. She's trying to hold it together.

Tony Maietta:
If she just started crying, it would lose all of its import. And that's what a great director does. Exactly.

Brad Shreve:
And as we talk about these scenes, I mentioned it several times now, this movie was so fucking uncomfortable. And that scene with her doctor, I was squirming. And I'm saying uncomfortable in a good way.

Tony Maietta:
Oh no, absolutely.

Brad Shreve:
It was supposed to be uncomfortable.

Tony Maietta:
It was supposed to be uncomfortable.

Brad Shreve:
This is an American tragedy.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. It's in the title. It's in the title.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Yeah. This is not a, this is not unicorns and rainbows, that's for sure.

Tony Maietta:
I think I'm most impressed with the very last scene between Elizabeth and Monty when he comes to visit, she comes to visit him on death row. Obviously now she knows that he, you know, is an attempted murderer at least. And she is so She's so simple in this. And this is what I always say about Elizabeth Taylor. You know, when she gets the right director and when she gets the right motivation, she's a— nobody can touch her as a film actress. She's so simple and she's so unaffected and she's just so moving in that. And Steven says it would— it was because the scene had like a dual— had like a— oh, what's the word? It was two— there were two things happening at the same time.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Here, there's like a parallel tension in the scene. There was the tension of the fact that Angela was seeing George for the very last time. But it was also the last scene that Taylor and Clift shot together on the film. So it was the last time Elizabeth Taylor was seeing Montgomery Clift. So, and she didn't know what would happen after this. She didn't know they'd go on to be friends. And so that scene has that dual tension, which she plays so beautifully. She's on the verge of tears the entire time, but she holds it.

Tony Maietta:
She's very simple. And she says that beautiful line about, it seems like we spend the best part of our time just saying goodbye. It's like, oh my God, it's just gut-wrenching. It's gut-wrenching.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And then he goes to the electric chair. So that's A Place in the Sun.

Brad Shreve:
And then, like I said, I'm dying to read the novel now because I knew some— know some of the changes, and then there were some things I think they did better. Based on what I know, did better in the film. And one of them is, it is somewhat questionable, did he— we saw him fall in the water with her.

Tony Maietta:
Mm-hmm.

Brad Shreve:
And we didn't see him quickly swim away from her while she's drowning. So there is that little bit of, you know, did he— how much did he hold back, or how much did he really not able to save her? Whereas the novel, it was very clear. He just stayed away from her. And to me, the end of this movie is— what made it tragic is, okay, yeah, we all have these fleeting thoughts. We don't go as far as he does, I hope. But he didn't. He decided not to do it, and yet here he is hanging for it.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly, exactly. I mean, he did just enough You know, give a man enough rope. He did just enough that the suspicion was there.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And even Michael said, that was not murder, that was manslaughter, or something like that. And I was like, well, yeah, but we really don't know because another thing Stevens does is the minute they fall in the lake, the camera goes all the way back to the shore. And so here's Stevens' camera being detached again. So we don't know what happened by the boat. We just have to take his word for it. Maybe he's telling the truth, maybe he's not.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
That's all part of this, the mystery of this film.

Brad Shreve:
So, yep.

Tony Maietta:
Well, we'll go over the stats, but is there anything else? Is there something you want to say to the people? Uh, do your housekeeping stuff?

Brad Shreve:
Yes, absolutely. Um, thank you to those of, of you who have, uh, done the survey. It's up for one more week this week. Please, we've gotten some good responses. We'd like to hear more. Uh, we're getting a lot of different responses. And, um, so let's hear from you on that. Uh, the link is in the the show notes, as well as rate and review the podcast.

Brad Shreve:
As we always say, if you're enjoying the show, let others know. So, if they're looking for a podcast and see some good reviews, they'll say, hey, I want to check it out as well. Just look on your app right there and you'll see it there. And thank you for listening. We're thrilled to have you with us.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, the survey is doing well from what I understand. So, let's keep it up. I'm fascinated by what people— people's comments and by what people say and what they want. It's great, it's great. All right, Brad, do you have the stats on this movie, how this movie performed?

Brad Shreve:
I do. The budget of this film was $2.3 million, uh, which is no surprise considering some of the sets and the shootings. Uh, it grossed $7 million, so it was a strong box office success, uh, and one of Paramount's biggest releases of the year. Uh, you've already talked about, uh, how well it did in the Oscars. It was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, won 6, uh, including, as you said, George Stevens. Other nominations were Best Actor for Montgomery Clift. I have Best Actress for Shelley Winters, but I think I typed that wrong. Is it Best Supporting Actor?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
I didn't think I had that right. Best Screenplay, which it did win for, and then we had some cinematography, Best Film Editing, and of course Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture by Franz Waxman.

Tony Maietta:
And best costume design, black and white, by—

Brad Shreve:
Ah, yes, I'm sorry, I skipped right over that.

Tony Maietta:
By Miss Edith Head. Very important, very important.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I don't know how I skipped over that.

Tony Maietta:
It's all right, you're forgiven, you're forgiven. Edith forgives you.

Brad Shreve:
And as far as, uh, how it's holding up today, critics score it 90%, not shabby at all. And the audience think it's pretty damn good too, they gave it 84%.

Tony Maietta:
The film got a really great notice by one particular critic— not really a critic, by a legend. Allegedly— and now I think this is actually documented, so maybe not allegedly— Charlie Chaplin saw the film in a special screening, and he said he thought it was the greatest American film he had ever seen.

Brad Shreve:
Wow.

Tony Maietta:
So I mean, I would take that over any Rotten Tomatoes any day, to have Charlie Chaplin, Sir Charles Chaplin, say that about your film. George Stevens was feeling pretty good.

Brad Shreve:
Charlie knew his stuff.

Tony Maietta:
He did. I'll tell you when George Stevens wasn't feeling very good, and this was in October of 1965.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I heard about this.

Tony Maietta:
When he brought a $2 million lawsuit against Paramount, NBC Television Network, and unnamed advertising agencies to prevent the broadcast of A Place in the Sun on television because he did not want it chopped up with commercials. He said he insert— he objected to the insertion of commercials, which he felt just created a distorted, truncated, and segmented version of his film. And he lost.

Brad Shreve:
Yep.

Tony Maietta:
That's why you're in the middle of the most dramatic scene of A Place in the Sun. Shelley Winters falls off the side of the boat. Cut to Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home.

Brad Shreve:
Oh well, what are you gonna do?

Tony Maietta:
What are you gonna do?

Brad Shreve:
And I'm glad you brought that up because I saw a clip, just a little note on that, and I didn't have time to research it to see if it was accurate. So I wrote down, ask Tony if this is true. So I'm glad you brought it up because I forgot.

Tony Maietta:
Art versus commerce. Art versus commerce. Story of Hollywood.

Brad Shreve:
So, yep.

Tony Maietta:
Well, Brad, this was a lot of fun. Thank you for talking about it with me. I'm really glad. I think we cured you of your George Stevens phobia. I hope so, at least.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, it's great. There's one other thing that I wish they had done. I wish they'd left it in the 1920s, but that's not—

Tony Maietta:
Do you really?

Brad Shreve:
That's just a personal preference. I don't think it made it worse. It just, I would, I like it.

Tony Maietta:
I just love the whole post-war consumerism attitude of it. So, well then, I guess thank you, Brett, Calif Brett, for suggesting this.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, thank you.

Tony Maietta:
Sorry it took us so long to get to it, but I think it was worth the wait. At least I hope it was. Thank you, everybody. Uh, don't forget that survey. Don't forget our Spotify playlist. This is a gorgeous score, and there will be some songs from it on our playlist. So, Brad, unless you have anything else to say, I just have one more thing left to say, but I don't want to say it. So let's not say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
Let's say au revoir.

Brad Shreve:
No, let's say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
I can't think of anything funny to say to these anymore. Oh, well, goodbye, everybody.