Determined to make something of himself, George (Montgomery Clift) takes a job in his uncle’s firm. But before he can break into the family’s charmed inner circle and fall in love with socialite Angela (17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor), he becomes embroiled with a factory girl (Shelley Winters). Pregnant, she threatens to ruin everything…
The film’s romantic despair is laid on thick (courtesy of source novel, Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy), but its architecture is impressive: subtle sound design; overlapping dissolves to juxtapose different class strata; rapturous close ups of the 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Director George Stevens gives everyone his or her due, and while the word “abortion” is never uttered, the film doesn’t need to spell it out.
A profoundly hysterical film in the classic sense of the word, there’s something about it that’s deeply, romantically, morally, even erotically unhinged.
Steve Erickson (Zeroville)
Noir suspense merges with romantic tragedy in this stunning 1951 movie adapted from the Theodore Dreiser novel. It features two of the most beautiful people in movie history, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. They are almost like reflections of each other; when they kiss, something incestuous and thrillingly forbidden throbs out of the screen.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
The greatest movie ever made about America.
Charlie Chaplin
George Stevens
Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Raymond Burr
USA
1951
English
6 Academy Awards including Best Director
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Credits
Screenwriter
Harry Brown, Michael Wilson
Cinematography
William C. Mellor
Editor
Wiliam Hornbeck
Art Director
Walter Tyler
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