Twins: Montgomery & Ethel

While Gemini is ruling, we're celebrating twins: real, fictional, and other. Double the pleasure! If it's your birthday we'll celebrate both of you in the comments.

Did you know that legendary actor Montgomery Clift had a twin sister? That's him with his twin sister Roberta above. She was born first making Monty the youngest of the Clift's three children. Monty and the family called her "Ethel" which was their mother's name though there mother went by "Sunny". Confusing!

Monty and Ethel in 1933. They were thirteen years old.The kids had a strange upbringing, moving frequently both abroad and in the States and they were privately tutored and well bred as if they had far far more money than they did. Monty theorized without a ton of conviction that his drive toward acting may have had to do with competition with his sister (and older brother), neither of whom pursued acting. Both of his siblings were college educated while Monty never went to high school, beginning his professional acting career at 14 on stage.

In a 1957 profile in McCall's a friend of Monty's is quoted as saying:

He's almost in a state of amnesia about his childhood. He never speaks of it, and if he's asked questions he side-steps."

The Clift kids weren't Geminis but Libras but all twins are honorary Geminis and all Geminis are honorary twins if you ask us.

It's hard to find much info about Roberta/Ethel but she married in 1945 (Monty attended) at which point Monty was already a star on Broadway collecting fans also bound for immortal fame like Marlon Brando. The next year he filmed his first movie role Red River (released later in 1948). 

His life was short and tortured but his influential legacy as one of the original brooding mumbling male superstars is long.

DVR Alert! Monty Clift Day on TCM

Clift's Big LiftIt's been too long since I preached the good news: Montgomery Clift made movies. That's it. Easy holy words to remember. Pass them on. Amen.

Saturday August 20th (tomorrow!) on TCM
6:00 am Raintree County (1957)
His troubled southern epic with bestie (and best co-star) La Liz. 
9:00 am Lonelyhearts (1958)
A minor curiousity for a number of reasons (Myrna Loy!) but mostly important for being Maureen Stapleton's debut. She was Oscar nominated as a lonely wife chasing some Monty tail on the side.

11:00 am The Big Lift (1950)
Love this one (pictured left). There's something so relaxed about him here not a quality one tends to associate with his work. 
1:00 pm Red River (1948)
Must- see entertaining Howard Hawks western with awesome gay coding and Monty at his all time prettiest. John Wayne don't like pretty! 
3:30 pm From Here to Eternity (1953)
1953's Best Picture. A star-powered soap opera in war film's clothing. The star wattage is so bright it's visible across the entire Pacific: Clift, Kerr, Lancaster, Sinatra, Reed. 

5:45 pm The Misfits (1961)
Appropriately elegaic given that it's the last film for both Clark Gable and (a fantastic) Marilyn Monroe. Monty is wonderfully broken, too.
8:00 pm A Place in the Sun (1951)
Stone cold classic. 
10:15 pm The Heiress (1949)
Olivia de Havilland ♥ Montgomery Clift. But what does Clift  ♥ ? 

Monty watching himself in The Heiress

12:15 am The Search (1948)
His Oscar-nominated debut performance. That doesn't happen often for male actors but he was an instant sensation at 27.
2:15 am I Confess (1953)
His only Hitchcock. He plays a priest because you know, that buttoned up guilty quality of Clift always added great friction to his übersexiness.
4:00 am The Defector (1966)
His last movie, released just months after his death, in which he plays a physicist mixed up with the shady plans of one Roddy McDowall.  

And if I just typed all that up about my all time favorite actor and none of you watch any of them, you deserve all the opening weekends of Conan versus Spy Kids that come your way*.

*That was uncalled for. I apologize. No one deserves that.

Cast This: "From Here To Eternity" Redux

By now you may have heard the news that an uncensored version of the famous novel From Here To Eternity, a "director's cut" to speak in film parlance, is being released on e-books next month? It will restore profanity and some homosexual content to the military epic; In the 1950s, you didn't ask and they certainly didn't want any telling (or cussing).

"THE BOLDEST BOOK OF OUR TIME... HONESTLY, FEARLESSLY ON THE SCREEN!"

It's maybe a bit corrupt of me to play a casting game with a remake I've never rooted for -- it's a terrific movie as is -- but "Cast This" is fun, isn't it? And in the case of a this new author's cut, why not? Movies have been remade for far stupider reasons. And I don't feel too bad at proposing a remake of 1955's Best Picture From Here To Eternity because it's already been remade once as a television miniseries in the late 70s.

The reinserted homosexual content would be mostly in reference to offscreen events but it got me to thinking about the movie and the fact that Frank Sinatra, an able actor and massively popular singer won an Oscar for the role that contains the content. (Basically it amounts to him being gay for pay, a hustler.)

Monty & Sinatra in From Here To Eternity | Sinatra's Oscar Win

Meanwhile Montgomery Clift, an actual homosexual and one of the defining actors of the 20th century, never won one. What a world. I don't know how close Monty ever came to winning in his four times at bat, but it would make sense that he had a reasonable shot with From Here to Eternity. It was a wildly popular film and won eight other Oscars. It's also one of those rare films where every principle member of the cast was nominated.

CAST THIS
So who would you place in the five main roles?

Prewitt & Lurene, bickering loversPrewitt (The Monty part) is a stubborn principled transfer from the Bugle corps who used to box but refuses to fight anymore... even when provoked violently. He takes up with a nightclub girl and keeps getting dragged into Maggio's troubles, some violent. This actor should be handsome and believable as a former fighter and be a bit of an enigma.

Lurene (the Donna Reed part) is a girl of somewhat shady reputation -- and conflicted about it -- who works at the nightclub where all the soldiers go for entertainment. She wants to be something other than what she is and return to the mainland (if I remember correctly?)

Maggio (the Sinatra part) is the undisciplined volatile Private and loyal friend to Prewitt, who has a hustling past and gets in bar fights and is later violently abused by a superior officer.

Karen (The Deborah Kerr part) is the Base Commandes's neglected and unfaithful wife. She takes up with the Sergeant under her husband and is eager for him to become ambitious so she can divorce her husband and marry him without, one presumes, losing her way of life. She has a great line I've never fully understood which I've written about before when she's flirting with the Sergeant and invites him in.

You're doing fine sergeant. My husband is off somewhere and it's raining outside and we're both drinking now. You probably only got one thing wrong: the lady herself. The lady is not what she seems. She's a washout if you know what I mean. And I'm sure you know what I mean.

Sgt Warden and his Captain's WifeI don't!

Like every other character in the story, she's pretty conflicted about her own desires and action.

Sgt. Warden (The Burt Lancaster part) is a man who's conflicted about cheating on his Commanding officer by bedding his wife. This actor should be masculine, confident someone you'd take orders from but who is complacent about being a cog in the machine. So a leader but not too much of one.

Obviously Sgt. Warden and Karen have to have sizzling chemistry for their legendary beach sex scene.

GO!