Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround - English
Dolby Digital Mono - French
Additional Release Material:
Interviews: Cast & Crew
Audio Commentary: George Stevens, Jr. - Son of producer/director, Ivan Moffatt- Associate Producer
Featurette: GEORGE STEVENS: FILMMAKERS WHO KNEW HIM
Trailers: Original Theatrical Trailer
Interactive Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Selection
Major Awards:
Academy Awards 1951 - Best Adapted Screenplay: Harry Brown & Michael Wilson
Academy Awards 1951 - Best Cinematography: William C. Mellor
Academy Awards 1951 - Best Costume Design (b&w): Edith Head
Academy Awards 1951 - Best Director: George Stevens
Academy Awards 1951 - Best Film Editing
Academy Awards 1951 - Best Original Score: Franz Waxman
Entertainment Reviews:
Entertainment Weekly - 11/08/1996
"...An American tragedy..." -- Rating: A
Description by OLDIES.com:
George Stevens' stunning adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" garnered six Academy Awards" (including best direction and screenplay) and guaranteed immortality for screen lovers Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor.
Clift is a poor young man determined to win a place in respectable society and the heart of beautiful socialite Elizabeth Taylor. Shelly Winters plays the factory girl whose dark secrets threatens Clift's professional and romantic prospects. Consumed with fear and desire, Clift is ultimately driven to a desperate act of passion that unravels his world forever.
Product Description:
George Stevens' lavish adaptation of this classic casts Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor as the star-crossed lovers. As George Eastman (Clift) hitchhikes into the town where a job awaits him at the factory of his affluent Uncle Charles (Herbert Heyes), the lovely Angela Vickers (Taylor) speeds by him. Although the job entails packing bathing suits all day, the young man works hard in his eagerness to get ahead. Driven by loneliness, he becomes involved with coworker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), a simple woman of limited appeal, in a relationship which defies company policy. After receiving a promotion, he's invited to a party at the home of the wealthy Vickers family, where he meets Angela, and the two quickly fall in love. While he and Angela continue to see each other, he is forced to continue his involvement with Alice, who threatens to get him fired by revealing their relationship. At the end of a whirlwind summer George and Angela receive the approval of her father (Sheppard Strudwick) on their marriage plans. Shortly thereafter, Alice informs George that she's pregnant with his child. Stevens transforms Theodore Dreiser's biting critique of America's caste system into a glossy romantic melodrama. Sumptuously photographed by William Mellor, who frames the almost inhumanly attractive couple in some of the most dizzyingly enraptured close-ups in movie history, the film features excellent performances by Shelley Winters and Clift, whose presence maintains an earnest, haunted passivity.
Plot Synopsis:
This social tragedy film, based on Theodore Dreiser's novel, stars Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters.
Handsome George Eastman is guilty of just one thing: being born on the wrong side of the tracks. But this hard-working young man plans to improve his social standing. When he meets Angela Vickers, a beautiful society lass, love blossoms. But a long separation leaves George lonely and uncertain of their future. So he begins a clandestine affair with homespun, mill-worker Alice. Once George's relationship with Angela is rekindled, he'll have to figure out how to get rid of Alice?
A PLACE IN THE SUN was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1991.
Won six Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay and Best Direction.
Filmed at Cascade Lake and Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Second screen version of Dreiser's controversial novel from the 1920s. The first was titled "An American Tragedy," directed by Josef Von Sternberg in 1930, and starred Phillip Holmes, Sylvia Sidney and Frances Dee.
Film Collectors & Archivists: Alpha Video is actively looking for rare and
unusual pre-1943 motion pictures, in good condition, from Monogram, PRC,
Tiffany, Chesterfield, and other independent studios for release on DVD. We
are also interested in TV shows from the early 1950s. Share your passion
for films with a large audience.
Let us know what you have.