Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor ponder future innocence lost.

Early Sunday evening, I was preparing to run to the store for some groceries and I turned the television to one of my favorite channels, TCM (Turner Classic Movies). I quickly learned that the 1951 classic A PLACE IN THE SUN was about 15 minutes in to its first act. I’d never viewed it before, and after realizing it featured Montgomery Clift and Liz Taylor at the height of their adolescent powers, I was hooked in until the end.

Clift’s natural acting style adds such complexity to his character. You want to root for him. He’s a terribly sympathetic tragic hero, done in by his own moral shortcomings. His character George Eastman could have found a way to make it work, or at least that is my 21st century take on his situation (notice I’m trying not drop any spoilers).

And Elizabeth Taylor. She was fully invested in the role: smart, sexy, believable, real, emotional. You fall in love with her on the screen just as Clift’s character does.

George Stevens’ direction ratchets up the suspense like a Hitchcock film. And Shelly Winters is a revelation too. Knowing her adult career – and how annoying she was as a stock character in her older age, seeing her play the same type role in her youth allows you to get the joke if you hadn’t before. Winters knows how to be utterly unlikable, loud and obnoxious. Her character in A PLACE IN THE SUN also possessed a naive hopefulness. And this yielded some pathos-filled facial expressions in her key monologue on the lake. Brilliantly done, Ms. Winters.