A Place in the Sun is a 1951 film which tells the story of a young man who is entangled with two women who work for his uncle's factory. It stars Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere, Keefe Brasselle and Raymond Burr.
The movie was adapted by Harry Brown and Michael Wilson from the novel An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser and the adapted play by Patrick Kearney. It was directed by George Stevens.
It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (Edith Head), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Montgomery Clift), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Shelley Winters) and Best Picture. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
"A Place in the Sun" was originally based upon an actual murder case. In 1906 Chester Gillette was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend, Grace Brown, at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. The murder trial drew international attention as Brown's love letters to Gillette were read in court. Theodore Dreiser saved newspaper clippings about the case for some 15 years before writing his novel "An American Tragedy."
