In our second staff pick, our Executive Director Anne-Marie Flynn has chosen this 1951 love story which sees a handsome, earnest but ambitious young man getting a job in his rich uncle’s factory and finding himself entangled in an impossible love triangle, ending in tragedy.
Anne-Marie: “This is the film which made me fall hopelessly in love with cinema. Shot in atmospheric, shimmering black and white, every luminous frame is beautiful to behold. This deeply romantic but ultimately tragic tale is also a terrific, suspenseful drama with dramatic moments which pulsate with tension. Described by Charlie Chaplin as “the greatest film ever made about America”, this classic version of Theodore Dreiser's 1951 novel ‘An American Tragedy’ won six Oscars and the first ever Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama. It pairs two of Hollywood’s most heavenly creatures; Montgomery Clift as George Eastman, the impoverished nephew of a wealthy industrialist and Elizabeth Taylor as glamorous socialite, Angela Vickers. This is a magnificent tale of passion, ambition, class struggle and morality. George faces the ultimate dilemma of fulfilling all his American dreams in a life with Angela or doing the right thing with office co-worker Alice, (a wonderfully downtrodden Shelley Winters) and succumbing to a life of drudgery. If ever a film was made to be seen on the big screen, it is this one. I urge you to savour every dazzling moment”
USA 1951 George Stevens 122m
