A Place in the Sun (1951)

(unspecified, possibly upstate New York; roughly contemporary)
IMDb

Post-war update of Theodor Dreisers 'An American Tragedy', a kind of Horatio Alger tale with an Edger Allen Poe ending. Raised in a poor religious family to which he always felt somewhat estranged, George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) runs into a wealthy uncle at the Chicago hotel in which he works as a bus boy. Offered a job, the ambitious young man quickly travels a great distance to work at the family factory, a manufacturer of women's swimwear. Socially forgotten by his relatives, he enters into a forbidden relationship with young co-worker Alice Tripp (Shelly Winters). Because employees are prohibited from dating by company policy, he sees her secretly. One day while touring his factory George's uncle notices him, and invites his nephew to attend a party at their mansion. There he meets Angela Vickers, a wealthy socialite with whom he falls in love. Now George is living a double life, one with Angela and his wealthy (and now) welcoming extended family and their friends, and a decidedly blue color and secretive one with Alice. After a short time George chooses to go with Angela, the girl he really loves, and who also happens to symbolize the life he always wanted. Only one problem, Alice announces that she is pregnant.

Georges Stevens impressive adaptation of the last two-thirds of Dreisers classic novel is riveting. Taught, melodramatic, and existential. It is a story about the truths we don't tell, to ourselves and others, and lies that come back to strangle us (or in this case nearly drown and later electrocute us). Clift is wonderful at giving life to the mind of his characters, you can see him thinking furred thoughts behind those darting eyes of his. George is always looking for a way out, whether from his situation with Alice, or from the once welcome friends and family, that now seem to only crowed out his precious time with Angela. He knows he's getting caught, he knows too many people saw him that day, that day when he was suppose to be in Kansas City with his mother. But instead he had made his way to that isolated lake with Alice. The lake Angela had shown him, the one she had found hiking as a young girl, her lake. A couple had drowned there last year she had told him, and it seemed to his mind that that kind of thing could happen again, conveniently. But when he finally gets there, he can't go through with it, he must resign himself to a poor life with Alice. She however knows he's not fully into it, knows that he will go with her only reluctantly, that he prefers the other woman and her world. That's when she stands up in the boat, and clumsy ill-fated girl that she is, capsizes the vessel and drowns. George survives, but its only a restive before the trail, a fiery Raymond Burr, and the electric chair.

Yes its irony laid on thick, and more then a little reminiscent of Camus, but it works beautifully. Stevens knows what he's doing, as well as all the actors. Everything is set up for the ending trail and the verdict, even the old doctor, who Alice had gone to feeling out if he really did offer the back-ally abortions she had heard about, he didn't, but he makes an encore appearance. I really think I've become a George Stevens man, I love the irony of Billy Wilder, but Stevens execution is just so exquisite, I find it as hard to resist as a young Elizabeth Taylor.