Monty @ 100: Unexpected ending with "The Defector"
Sunday, October 18, 2020 at 7:00PM 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...