The farewell performance of Montgomery Clift is this below average spy story The Defector. The effects of a lot of pain killers to dull all the hurts of 45 years show on Montgomery Clift as he essentially goes through the motions of playing an American physicist asked to do a dangerous bit of espionage behind the Iron Curtain.
The request comes from CIA agent Roddy McDowall who doesn't feel Clift has a need to know all of what's going on. He's told to contact a Russian physicist and get some information about some rocket fuel formula and bring it back.
So Clift is somewhat surprised when he gets all kinds of attention from Hardy Kruger of the East German secret police who is also a scientist. And Kruger is being handled the same way by his superior David Opatoshu.
The Defector is not a horribly bad film, just not one you'd like to have as your epitaph performance. Not anything remotely close to The Search, A Place In The Sun, From Here To Eternity or Judgment At Nuremberg for which Clift took home Oscar nominations. Clift should only have lived to do Reflections In A Golden Eye with best friend Elizabeth Taylor.
The request comes from CIA agent Roddy McDowall who doesn't feel Clift has a need to know all of what's going on. He's told to contact a Russian physicist and get some information about some rocket fuel formula and bring it back.
So Clift is somewhat surprised when he gets all kinds of attention from Hardy Kruger of the East German secret police who is also a scientist. And Kruger is being handled the same way by his superior David Opatoshu.
The Defector is not a horribly bad film, just not one you'd like to have as your epitaph performance. Not anything remotely close to The Search, A Place In The Sun, From Here To Eternity or Judgment At Nuremberg for which Clift took home Oscar nominations. Clift should only have lived to do Reflections In A Golden Eye with best friend Elizabeth Taylor.