George Stevens directs Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters in this drama where a young man on the rise into high society impregnates one woman and falls for another.

First time watch and I absolutely loved this. Every shot is ambitiously framed and pregnant with atmosphere. Taylor looks delectable, Winters puts in a memorable (if depressing) shift. Clift is amazing. You are completely trapped within in his headspace throughout. Even when the outlook is bleak and he is making terrible decisions. A true anti hero in that he is human, fallible and selfish. The final act is very strange as it feels filmed after he had his infamous car crash. It wasn’t, the accident occurred 5 years later. So it is happenstance but the camera avoids his face out of a certain profile and when it does it feels withered and scarred. Like Stevens is making an active choice in the final scenes to de-glamorize the beautiful star. Unfiltered, out of frame, out of focus. Did I bring that to the film? Probably but it is eerily uncanny how it plays like a production working itself around an injured star.

10

Perfect Double Bill: I Confess (1953)