by Baby Clyde
1961 Monty was a shadow of his former self. Long gone were days of matinee idol status and teeny boppers swooning over his dreamboat looks. As has already been expertly detailed by my colleagues Montgomery Clift’s career is one of two halves. By this point he was deep into the second half and the eventual outcome seemed inevitable, but that didn’t mean he was unable to still produce the goods...
Post-accident the quality of his work and collaborators was surprisingly high. Despite all his troubles, top class talent was still willing to work with him. In the last 50’s and early 60’s Clift was directed by such legendary names Mankiewicz, Huston, Kazan and the less familiar now but undeniably A-List in his day, Stanley Kramer.
Starting in the late 40’s Kramer produced such classics as Champion (1949) and High Noon (1952) as well as introducing Marlon Brando to cinema audiences with The Men (1950). Turning to directing in the mid 50’s he became known for his important, Big Issue movies, propagating liberal causes and pressing social issues. Whilst he wasn’t an imaginative director and many of his films feel flat and static today, at the time these hot button issues were often controversial and hugely popular. The Academy certainly loved him receiving three Best Director nomination and six in the Best Picture category.
Having tackled racism in The Defiant Ones (1958), nuclear war On The Beach (1959) and creationism Inherit The Wind (1960) it was only a matter of time until he made it to the Nazis, which bring us to Judgment At Nuremburg (1961) and Monty’s last great hurrah.
Judgement at Nuremburg is a lumbering 3 hour, fictionalised account of the Judges Trial which took place in post WWII Nuremburg, Germany and 12 Nazis judges charged with various crimes against humanity. Subject matters don’t get any more important than that and whilst it’s not a bad film, it’s slow and talky and a bit of a chore. It’s saving grace is the dazzling all-star cast. Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Burt Lancaster and Richard Widmark all bring their A game and newcomer Maximillian Schell won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as the defence council but it’s a couple of extremely familiar faces with similar personal demons that steal the show in tiny supporting parts.
Playing German victims of Nazis atrocities Clift and Judy Garland are the heart of the film. Never particularly known her for dramatic chops, Judy is a revelation (But we have to wait a couple of years for her centenary!) and in one scene of little over 15 minutes Monty proves that even if he looks diminished his talent certainly isn’t.
He’s heart-breaking as Rudolph Peterson a ‘feeble minded’ bakers assistant who was the victim of forced sterilization. We first see him as he nervously enters the courtroom to testify. He falters in the doorway momentarily overwhelmed by the sea of faces staring at him and the importance of the situation. He wants to be anywhere else, whilst at the same time he's eager to please. You can see him take a deep breath and steel himself for what is to come. Hesitantly looking around for reassurance he visibly relaxes as he’s able to answer the first questions and briefly enjoys the warmth of the crowd as they laugh at one of his stories. This all changes on cross examination. The defences argument is that no crime has been committed because it was perfectly legal to sterilise the mentally incompetent. Up until this point Peterson had been holding his own but when questioned about his education and the insinuation that his beloved mother may also have been to blame for his problems he begins to crack. Voice breaking, hand trembling he shifts uneasily in his chair and becomes increasingly agitated as he’s hounded to complete a simple language exercise. It’s hard to watch. Holding a picture up to the court and crying ‘Was she feebleminded’ all we’re left with is a frightened little boy begging for his dead mother to come and save him.
In fifteen minutes, Clift takes us from nervousness, to confidence to broken man. It’s an acting Tour de Force made even more remarkable by the fact that the actor was in such bad shape that he was unable to remember his lines, and reportedly ad libbed much of his dialogue.
The role was perfectly suited to him at the time. The legendary beauty was a faded memory. Bloated from alcohol, scarred and paralysed from the accident and with two eyebrows like marauding caterpillars trying to escape his forehead Clift seems much older than his then 40 years. He looks haunted. You can read the pain in his face and it feels like there is a fine line between what is real and what’s performance.
an FYC ad for Judgment at Nuremberg
Judy and Monty at the premiere in December 1961
The film earned him his 4th and final Oscar nomination and the one he should have won in a landslide (I’d give him the win in ’48 as well). It seems the loss was down to Hollywood politics as much as anything else. There can be no doubt that by this time that his addiction problems and unreliability had lost him a lot of good will with his peers. The nominations for both him and Garland caused controversy as such legendary stars slumming it in the Supporting categories was frowned upon by many, including powerful gossip maven Louella Parsons who complained it was like ‘a bank president reducing himself to title of bookkeeper in order to get a coffee break’ (Oh how times have changed). He also wasn’t helped by an over the top campaign that seemed to suggest so deep were his problems that this was likely to be voters last chance to reward him. This didn’t sway them and they went with an entirely undeserving George Chakiris, caught up in the West Side Story sweep.
There were only two more films after this (Which you’ll be reading about over the next couple of days) but it’s hard to watch this truly great performance and not wonder how things could have been different. Imagine Monty relieved of his leading man status and left to pursue a career as a topflight character actor. It’s one of cinema’s great what ifs.
Next up: Freud (1962)