A Place in the Sun - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of A Place in the Sun or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to A Place in the Sun

[manuel]

A favorite movie of director Mike Nichols, who claimed to have seen it over fifty times and who said it was perhaps his biggest influence when directing The Graduate (1967).

[lena]

When George goes to the movie theater, the poster outside indicates the attraction is an "Ivan Moffat production"; Ivan Moffat was an associate producer on this movie, and was also a member of producer and director George Stevens' motion picture unit during World War II.

[cassandra]

The novel contains a scene in which Alice Tripp goes to a country doctor and tentatively asks about an abortion. Shelley Winters relates in her autobiography that George Stevens initially planned to drop the scene because "it's rather censorable, but I think if we handle it delicately, it will illuminate the factory girl's terrible plight." Winters was given the new script pages one morning and asked to memorize the lines; Stevens planned to rehearse once, then immediately film the scene for spontaneity. "When he called, 'Action!' I was already crying," Winters wrote. "I twisted my white handkerchief into a shredded ball. The scene was nine minutes long. A full camera load. Boy, did I ever act!" Stevens had Winters do the scene again after letting her realize that tears would only frighten the doctor, and that Alice must try and refrain from crying. "Of course, when we saw the two takes the next day, the one in which I followed his exact direction was remarkable, even if I say so myself. Every time I've seen that scene in a theater, every man in the audience groans and every woman weeps. George had taught me another life-long acting lesson: don't indulge yourself. Make the audience weep."

[bernard]

For the Eastman mansion, art director Hans Drier took his own interior set for Sunset Blvd. (1950), removed the Mediterranean-style detail, and painted it white. Norma Desmond's staircase is prominent, especially during the party scene. Drier had previously re-used the set for Fancy Pants (1950).

[miriam]

In the event somebody looks at the stunts section for this movie and sees that Helen Thurston and Polly Burson doubled for Shelley Winters, both women did. In the drowning scene, Helen started out when she fell into the lake. She fell ill and Polly was called in to finish the scene. Helen came back later and completed the long-shot sequences of the scene.

[beth]

Based on Theodore Dreiser's novel "An American Tragedy", published in 1925.

[riley]

Dame Elizabeth Taylor's "white lilac" gown became a fashion sensation and sold many copies and patterns.

[bernard]

With this movie, Dame Elizabeth Taylor found herself in the most demanding role of her career. George Stevens asked much of her in take after take, but Taylor appreciated the challenge. She was quoted as saying, "He (Stevens) didn't make me feel like a puppet. He was an insinuating director. He gave indications of what he wanted but didn't tell you specifically what to do or how to move. He would just say, 'No, stop. That's not quite right,' and make you get it from your insides and do it again until it was the way he wanted it." Stevens saw what Taylor was up against: "If she thought I was more severe than needed, she'd spit fire. But the following morning she had forgotten it completely. She had enormous beauty, but she wasn't charmed by it. It was there. It was a handicap and she discouraged people being overly impressed with it. She was seventeen, and she had been an actress all of her life. The only thing was to prod her a bit into realizing her dramatic potential."

[caroline]

Early in this movie, Alice Tripp tells George Eastman: "When you're an Eastman, you not in the same boat as anyone." Later, he takes her out on a boat with the intention of drowning her. (He decides he can't, but she falls out and he refuses to save her.)

[harry]

Based upon the true story of Chester Gillette, who murdered his pregnant girlfriend in 1906. He was tried, convicted, and executed in 1908. The ghost of the actual victim, Grace Brown, is said to haunt the lake where she drowned, in upstate New York.

[beth]

While Dame Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters had nothing but praise for George Stevens as a director, Montgomery Clift found him lacking and unimaginative, labelling him a mere "craftsman". Clift's biggest disagreement with Stevens did not deal with the character of George, but with Winters' character, Alice Tripp. He thought that Tripp should be much more sympathetic, and that Winters was playing her all wrong.

[gabriel]

Dame Elizabeth Taylor was also initially intimidated by the intense scenes she had to play with Montgomery Clift, "because Monty was the New York stage actor and I felt very much the inadequate teenage Hollywood sort of puppet that had just worn pretty clothes and hadn't really acted except with horses and dogs." Clift put her at ease, and the two began a life-long friendship on the set.

[toni]

Although budgeted at $1.8 million, the final cost was $2.3 million.

[fred]

The scene in which Dame Elizabeth Taylor faints was said to have been the best faint ever executed by an actress. Her unconcerned attitude with the health of her own body and the force in which she falls on her ribs and face is able to make any audience wince.

[lena]

Montgomery Clift and Dame Elizabeth Taylor were madly in love with each other on the set, they even planned marriage, but when Taylor asked Clift to convince her to divorce her husband, he suddenly backed down.

[wallace]

In the opening credits, as George waits at the side of the road for a ride, he's actually passed by Angela's car, as you can tell by the distinctive horn.

[riley]

Although George Eastman's leather jacket might seem to suggest that he is a World War II veteran of the Army Air Corps, it is in fact a police officer's jacket, as shown by the two grommets on the left side for pinning on a badge.