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A Place in the Sun is a 1951 American tragedy film directed by George Stevens from a screenplay by Harry Brown and Michael Wilson, based on the 1925 novel An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser and a 1926 play of the same title. The novel had been adapted for the screen as An American Tragedy in 1931. The story was inspired by the murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in 1906, which resulted in Gillette's conviction and execution by electric chair in 1908.