by Nathaniel R
Sadly, we now reach the finale of the Montgomery Clift filmography. The shroud of sadness and tragedy that hung over Clift's second act in motion pictures (Raintree County through Freud) have often obscured the quality of some of the films. Despite the broken souls and grim reaper feeling exuded by The Misfits and Judgment at Nuremberg in particular -- it's part of their subject matter, after all -- Clift's acting prowess was actually on the rise again.
His declining health and addictions interfered. After Freud there was another four year intermission from the silver screen as there'd been just after From Here to Eternity. With 1966's The Defector the curtain raised again and filming went smoothly for a change. But no third act came. Both Clift (then 45) and his director Raoul Lévy (then just 44) died that year, Clift of a heart attack shortly before the movie's release and Levy, shortly after, by his own hand...
While offscreen calamity can sometimes inform a movie's mystique and even quality (see The Misfits), that's not the norm. The Defector isn't a particularly special movie but neither is it a true dud. It falls in the vast majority of decent pictures in other words, many of which are forgotten unless there's an enduring name brand (director or star) involved.
The espionage thriller is about an American physicist Professor Bower (Montgomery Clift) sent to Germany by a CIA man (Roddy McDowall, who pulled double duty off-screen serving as Monty's moral support.) Bower is there to retrieve a secret microfilm from a Soviet scientist that Clift's character knows by reputation, having previously translated his work.
McDowall, Krüger, and Clift in "The Defector"
Then rising star Hardy Krüger (still with us today at 92 years of age), hot off a Golden Globe nomination and controversy (he refused the nomination!) for The Flight of the Phoenix, plays a German man who stands in Monty's way. Sort of. The duo have an affinity of sorts though that's best left to the plot unfolding should you watch it. This is a thriller that's mostly cold war tense gentlemanly conversations though very real violence lurks in either the imagination or the occassional dead body. The picture veers towards more traditional thrills in the last half hour in which Monty, doing all his own stunts, escapes.
You can't make me a schizophrenic. At least not today. I still know what's real and what's not.
For now.
Unfortunately for Monty the lead role isn't the interesting one. We're told repeatedly that "he won't break!" but we're basically asked to take it for granted, probably due to audience familiarity with the Clift's persona since he often played men who other men couldn't break even if they were willing to break his body. His most interesting scene is when he is trapped in a hotel room that's actually a mental prison designed to make the inhabitant lose touch with reality (fun set design and sound work).
Bower gets a mandatory love interest in a sympathetic German nurse (Marcha Méril) and both actors handle their scenes together well but the relationship is essentially a practical rather than romantic one (which they both recognize) as he attempts to escape Germany.
I have to leave.
The only real excitement, character-arc and screen relationship-wise, is in Hardy Krüger's very capable hands as he tries to win Clift over.
Today the picture is mostly a curio, important only because it's Clift's last picture and, even more niche, his only film with longtime friend and former lover Roddy McDowall who, like Liz, was loyal to the end. McDowall said, as Robert Guardia's book "Monty", recalls...
'All we could do was hold Monty's hand until the end.'
Two photos of Clift from the mid 50s taken by Roddy McDowall
The Defector was not meant to be Clift's swan song. He'd only taken the job to prove he was fit for work again. But what feature is ever intended to be the last for a non-retired actor? The famously troubled actor died on July 23rd, 1966, a month after shooting had wrapped.
Clift was set to start filming Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) the very next month. Monty was reportedly excited about sharing the screen with Elizabeth Taylor again, his definitive co-star and beloved friend, for a fourth time. She had once again come to his rescue, putting her salary on the line as collateral since Clift was then uninsurable. But it was not to be. Clift's fan / friend / rival Marlon Brando replaced him in the picture as they'd often been been obsessed over for similar reasons and considered for the same parts.
It's always devastating to reach the end when the end comes too soon. And in Clift's phenomenal early promise but tragic trajectory, a Hollywood Icarus reaching glory only to descend in flames, it's impossible not to wonder what might have been. What if his personal demons had not proved unconquerable? What if society had been more accepting of LGBTQ people? What if he'd had the opportunity for a late career artistic revival like Brando had?
Clift, McDowall, and Taylor in March of 1964
But even at the peak of his stardom, when he should have been elated, Clift felt mortally wounded, as if his fate was predetermined. Consider this oft-told anecdote:
Soon after the shooting of “From Here to Eternity” was concluded (1953), Monty was interviewed by Hedda Hopper at the Brown Derby restaurant. She asked him: “In one sentence, what is the story of your life?” He replied: “I've been knifed.”
100 years after his birth and 54 after his death, the actor's artistry still shines and will survive thanks to a handful of classics. Not every star is lucky eenough to get so many of them. Despite his very unhappy life, that's some kind of posthumous happy ending, however bittersweet.
Next: a digestif to wrap up, the documentary Making Montgomery Clift