A Place in the Sun is a 1951 American drama film loosely based on the 1925 novel An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser and the play, also titled An American Tragedy. It tells the story of a workingclass young man who is entangled with two women one who works in his wealthy uncles factory and the other a beautiful socialite. The novel had been filmed once before, as An American Tragedy, in 1931.
George Eastman Montgomery Clift, the poor nephew of rich industrialist Charles Eastman Herbert Heyes, arrives in town following a chance encounter with his uncle while working as a bellhop in a Chicago hotel. The elder Eastman invites George to visit him if and when he ever comes to town, and the ambitious young man takes advantage of the offer. Despite Georges family relationship to the Eastmans, they regard him as something of an outsider, but his uncle nevertheless offers him an entrylevel job at his factory. George, uncomplaining, hopes to impress his uncle whom he addresses as Mr. Eastman with his hard work and earn his way up. While working in the factory, George starts dating fellow factory worker Alice Tripp Shelley Winters, in defiance of the workplace rules. Alice is a poor and inexperienced girl who is dazzled by George and slow to believe that his Eastman name brings him no advantages.Over time, George begins a slow move up the corporate ladder, into a supervisory position in the department where he began. He has submitted recommendations on improving production in his department, which finally catch the attention of his uncle, who invites him to their home for a social event. At the party, George finally meets society girl Angela Vickers Elizabeth Taylor, whom he has admired from afar since shortly after arriving in town, and they quickly fall in love. Being Angelas escort thrusts George into the intoxicating and carefree lifestyle of high society that his rich Eastman kin had denied him. When Alice announces that she is pregnant and makes it clear that she expects George to marry her, he puts her off, spending more and more of his time with Angela and his new wellheeled friends. An attempt to procure an abortion for Alice fails, and she renews her insistence on marriage. George is invited to join Angela at the Vickerss holiday lake house over Labor Day weekend, and excuses himself to Alice, saying that the visit will advance his career and accrue to t
Source: Wikipedia