Rating: 
Summary: Very entertaining.
Review: I couldn't take my eyes off of this movie. I was appauled at the beginning when George Eastman started having eyes for the wonderful Angela Vickers, but the chemistry between them made you want him to do everything he could to be with her. I think Shelly Winters character could have been better. They dressed her in the worst clothes and made her completely undesirable to George. This movie forced me to put myself in each character's position, I got caught up in George's dilema. Overall, it was excellent!!
Rating:
Summary: Forever Elizabeth!
Review: Time has taken away some of the edge off this film . However the sheer power of the encounter between Taylor and Clift is film magic. Their dialogue together at the dance and their sheer magnetism on the screen has not been duplicated since. You believe every word they say to each other..
Rating:
Summary: This movie sucked me in!
Review: The first time I saw this movie was at midnight on a local tv station. I had to get up and go to work early, but I couldn't bring myself to turn off the tv. I became so engrossed in George Eastman's dilemma that I had to see what would happen; what he would do. I was repulsed by his abandonement of Shelley Winters character, but could understand how he was mesmerized by Elizabeth Taylor's Angela Vickers and the new, glorious life she represented. Only a very few movies have done that to me.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Story & Strong Performances
Review: This movie surprised me. It wasn't what I expected. Taylor, Cliff & Winters give great performance in the respectice roles, believable & sympathetic. A must see movie and a moral lesson goes long with it but not heavy handed. SPOILER AHEAD: Murder or not you decide but the priest answers that question for us. Also, watch the documentary in the special features. It's about 20 minutes but worth watching.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful, sorrowful, luminous film
Review: "A Place in the Sun" tells the story of George Eastman (Montgomery Clift), a poor relation who goes to work in his rich uncle's factory. He starts at the bottom level, working the production line, and gets involved romantically and sexually with co-worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), all the while yearning for the unattainable - the gorgeous Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). However, by the time he is able to finally be with Angela, his relationship with Alice interferes with his plans.
The film is based on the novel "An American Tragedy", written by Theodore Dreiser in 1925. Elizabeth Taylor, who was only 17 at the time, was cast as Angela Vickers, the beautiful and rich love interest of George Eastman (Montgomery Clift). Shelley Winters is Alice Tripp, the woman who becomes a burden to Eastman, an obstacle to his love for Angela and her way of life. Stevens was reticent at first to cast Winters in the dowdy role; at the time she was known for portraying glamorous types or sexpots. She convinced Stevens to cast her by showing up in his office for her appointment with him dressed for the part, sitting silently when he came out and didn't recognize her for several minutes as he glanced around his outer office at the actresses waiting to see him.
Raymond Burr, best known for his TV role as Perry Mason, plays a Perry Mason of sorts in the film: the prosecuting attorney, Frank Marlowe.
This was the first of three films that Taylor and Clift made together; and they became instant friends upon meeting for the first time for the making of "A Place in the Sun". The chemistry between the two is evident, although Clift was in real life homosexual. They remained close friends until his death in 1966, at age 45, from a heart attack. Taylor has remarked that her first kiss with Clift in the film was the second time she had ever been actually kissed - the first time was two weeks before filming started.
Director Stevens decided to take the story and set it in post-war times instead of in the 1920's, when the novel takes place, to take the atmosphere of wartime out of the feel of the story. The lushly filmed lake scenes have the look of an Ansel Adams photograph. Color would have been superfluous. The masterful use of shadows is evident throughout, and Stevens' several excruciatingly tight closeups of Taylor and Clift together serve to highlight her beauty and the chemistry between the two lead actors, heightening the sense of danger and romance.
"A Place in the Sun" was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning six, including Best Director for George Stevens.
Note:
Dreiser's novel was based on an actual murder case of 1906 - the case of Chester Gillette.
Rating:
Summary: Advertisement for "Abstinence"!!!-Thought provoking also!
Review: This could have been titled"Wheres a "Cold Shower" when you need one". But Seriously-- I am rewriting this review because i found myself thinking about this movie days after the viewing.This movie has lessons in it about "lust" vs "love(real). About promises made and sometimes broken. About the choices in life and how a moments decision can affect the rest of ones life, about the nature of loneliness, about Class structure in work, lifestyle differences between the haves and have-nots.ETC... PARENTS can appreciate this as a study of the tough teenage years when getting to know oneself and being invovlved in relationships can be very difficult(characters in love triangle are 18-22 age group) Elizabeth Taylor is mesmorizing, has a spectacular screen presence. Montgomery cliff plays a James Dean type, hes torn up inside with the decisions he has to make, a little stiff at times. Will definitly keep..
Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking & Realistic
Review: Ever wanted something you couldn't have? Ever wanted it so badly you'd kill to have it? In "A Place in the Sun" George Eastman (Montgomery Clift), a poor young man with big dreams, deals with these questions as he tries to make it to the top of the social ladder in spite of social prejudices from the richer Eastman clan.
As he pursues his dream of social grandeur, he falls in love with the beautiful and unatttainable Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor), a rich socialite. But just as his dreams begin to come true, George is confronted by his ex girlfriend (Shelly Winters), a poor factory employee, who is pregnant with his baby and threatens to destroy his newly attained social lifestyle. Having made it to the top, however, George is determined to stay there at any cost - a decision that leads to tragic results.
Rating:
Summary: Memorable performances
Review: Excellent movie about the tragic consequences of pushing too hard to obtain the american dream. Montgomery Clift gives a realistic performance as the poor kid who makes it to the top at a high price. Liz Taylor is believable as the rich beauty who falls in love with Clift, and Shelly Winters is especially memorable as the poor factory worker who gets shoved aside by Clift after he meets Taylor. Beautifully made movie that makes you really get into the mind and heart of its protagonists. Highly Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Absurdly Overrated
Review: It has been my observation that there is a tendency among reviewers, both professional and amateur, to overrate movies from the fifties and earlier simply because they were hits in their time. It's almost as if reviewers consider these movies to be "sacred" entities, that it would in fact be a mortal sin for them to fairly criticize them by today's standards. Perhaps there is also the fear of going against the grain of public opinion, being critical of a movie that the masses continue to hold up as "great". In few cases is this more evident than for the movie "A Place in the Sun", which, by the way, charts at #92 on AFI's list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time. I have no problem in honoring movies from the early years of Hollywood for being significant or progressive for their time (like "All Quiet on the Western Front"), anymore than I do in honoring Vivaldi for his work in advancing music prior to Beethoven. But I do believe reviewers would do potential viewers a great service by realistically comparing older movies, particularly dramas, with their modern-day counterparts. That being said, if the movie "A Place in the Sun" was remade using modern day actors and performed in precisely the same manner and style today, do you think anyone would realistically give it the kind of ratings seen on this forum (4 1/2 stars)? I think not. Instead, it would be ridiculed as being predictable, melodramatic, and dreadfully dull, and it would most likely receive a deservedly lower rating (not to mention an overall "thumbs down"). It should be pointed out that the one semi-bright spot in this movie is Elizabeth Taylor's typically radiant performance, but even that effort falls well short of making this a good movie. Montgomery Clift, bless his heart, has to be one of the most uncharismatic and overrated actors ever to come out of that era, and in this movie his character comes across as wholly unlikable and unsympathethic. It reminded me a great deal of his similarily forgettable performance in "From Here to Eternity", and I can only ponder that his relatively good looks got him the parts for these and other movies in which he has appeared. Previous reviewers have stated that this is an epic love story, but can anyone who has truly been in love and knows the kind of buoyant emotions such a wondrous state of being can evoke realistically claim that Clift's character was in love when, in fact, he wanted to DROWN Shelley Winters? This may be an epic "obsession" story, but an epic "love" story it is not. And neither is it a great, nor even a good, movie. Perhaps it was in 1951, but it fails to make the grade in 2003.
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