A Place in the Sun is a 1951 American drama film based on the 1925 novel "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser and the 1926 play, also titled "An American Tragedy". It tells the story of a working-class young man who is entangled with two women: one who works in his wealthy uncle's factory, and the other a beautiful socialite. Another adaptation of the novel had been filmed once before, as "An American Tragedy", in 1931. All these works were inspired by the real-life murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in 1906, which resulted in Gillette's conviction and execution by electric chair in 1908.