Three “Flaming Young Stars” Share The Big Screen

Many bad movies have been made from great novels. But I’d say that very few bad novels have been turned into great movies.

So when a novel is turned into a feature film that wins 6 Academy Awards and the first Golden Globe for Best Picture, you can safely assume that the original novel was excellent.

An American Tragedy was published in 1925. Twenty-five years later, the novel was turned into a wildly successful film called A Place In The Sun—starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelly Winters, “three flaming young stars,” according to the movie’s trailer below.

Though I haven’t seen the film, it appears to generally follow the novel’s plotline, with some changes, as is the case in any book-turned-movie.

A Place In The Sun has an all-star cast from the 1950s. It’s the equivalent of a Matt Damon, Leo Dicaprio, and Scarlet Johanson in a modern flick.

From the standpoint of Academy Awards, the actors, and box office success, I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that A Place In The Sun is right up there with some of the greatest movies of all time, including Gone With The Wind. The American Film Institute rated the film as one of its greatest 100 of movies in 100 years—placing it #92.

So this one will definitely go down on my list of movies to watch soon. I’m interested to see how it compares to Dreiser’s novel. I wonder if he had any idea we would still be talking about An American Tragedy and the Chester Gillette case in 2012, nearly 90 years after his novel was published? Amazing.

The trailer for A Place In The Sun is below. I realize this is three days this week of post with videos. That might be a blogging faux pas. I don’t know. But, rest assured, this isn’t turning into an all-video blog.

How cheesy were trailers back in the 1950s?