Opening Scene
A Place in the Sun is all about the power of imagery to suggest things which are not stated explicitly. It should be mandatory study in all film courses. The focus on imagery begins in the opening scenes just after the titles end. George, hitchhiking his way to get a job with a rich relative, is looking at a billboard for his uncle’s factory when he hears an automobile horn. He turns to see Angela Vickers driver by in a shiny convertible. Angela will become the symbolic personification of all his dreams of wealth and ambition, but for now she doesn’t know he exists. She drives right on by and George turns around to find that instead he must accept a ride from a friendly old man driving a piece of junk that barely looks capable of movement. This imagery sets the stage brilliantly for the film’s examination of the gap between dreams of economic empowerment and the ugly reality of being part of the 99%.
The Billiards Room
After having been working a low-wage job on the assembly line for months, George is finally invited back to the Eastman family mansion for a snooty party for their rich friends. Despite actually being an Eastman by blood (and, on top of that, being easily the best looking man there) he is an outcast and outsider through and through. He eventually finds up all alone in an entire room set aside for the singularly specific enjoyment of pool. While there he is accidentally spotted by Angela right at the moment he pulls off an impressive trick shot involving holding the cue behind his back and requiring the cue bouncing off multiple sides of the table (and Montgomery Clift actually pulls it off himself, as the entire scene is filmed in a long-shot without editing).
The imagery cements the nature of George’s standing within the Eastman family: he is an outside who actually has had to learn how to do things in order to get by in the world. They, on the other hand, have a house big enough for a pool table which looks pretty pristine, as if it has rarely been used. Most likely because no one has actually bothered to learn how to play pool and if by chance they have, certainly not to the extent that they would be capable of replicating the trick shot which so impresses Angela.
Ambitious George
George is ambitious. He really does want to prove himself capable to the family of contributing to the business. Since he is the outsider and poor relation, this means taking the unimaginative step of actually learning the business and seeking ways to improve it. A key bit of imagery shows George in a tiny apartment poring over textbooks as he tries to fill in the missing gaps of his academic education. Meanwhile, through the parted curtains of a window, the repetitious flickering of a neon sign reading Vickers punctuates the distant gulf between the have-nots that keep them from ever becoming one of the haves. Most of us have to really study hard and learn things just to get a job offering very little gain while a precious few can be potentially be complete idiots who don’t anything yet are promised paradise simply as a result of the accident of birth.
That’s Montgomery Clift, Honey!
George Eastman is almost ridiculously handsome. He is the kind of man that in the world outside high society would be the most desirable guy in any room. One of the few examples of humor in this film is when his uncle makes the outright ridiculous claim that his long-lost nephew bears a striking resemblance to his own rather pedestrian-looking son. It’s funny not because the actor playing the is particularly bad-looking or anything, but precisely because in comparison to Clift he is just simply plain and it would take the kind of effort only a father can muster to claim such a resemblance exists.
Notably, however, the first time Angela is in the same room with George, she doesn’t notice him at all. Her attention is almost singularly focused on his plainer cousin. Why would this be? How could this be? These questions are exploited as imagery to reveal that in the world of the rich, things like looks don’t matter nearly as much in matters of coupling as other essential aspects of life: like being rich enough for a “merger” but neither not rich enough or too rich so to become potentially embarrassing.
