Shane / A Place in the Sun

SHANE, 1953, Paramount, 118 min. George Stevens infuses the western genre with mythic grandeur in this timeless classic. Alan Ladd is at his most iconic as the title character, an ex-gunfighter forced out of retirement when a family of homesteaders (Van Heflin, Jean Arthur, Brandon de Wilde) comes under attack by a vicious rancher’s hired guns. Jack Palance is one of the most threatening villains in movie history, and the film itself is both a summing up of the western genre and a sign of things to come in later masterworks like UNFORGIVEN. One of the most influential films ever made—and one of the most entertaining.

A PLACE IN THE SUN, 1951, Paramount, 122 min. Montgomery Clift delivers arguably his finest performance as a tormented young man in love with socialite Elizabeth Taylor, but still weighed down by his past fling with factory girl Shelley Winters.