90th Anniversary of
Montgomery Clift's birth


90º Aniversario del nacimiento de Montgomery Clift (1920-2010)

aaaaa TODA LA INFORMACIÓN SOBRE EL ACTOR MONTGOMERY CLIFT EN ESPAÑOL aaaaa

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31.1.09

Ciné-Tele Revue 1986

En la portada de este número se destaca un reportaje sobre Montgomery Clift al cumplirse el 20º aniversario de su muerte (1966-1986).
El fotógrafo Ramón García González en una semblanza autobiográfica que recoge la web de la Biblioteca digital Cervantes, comenta una anécdota que no parece muy verosímil por la descripción que hace de Montgomery Clift y el año. ¿Se confundiría de personaje?:
Una anéctoda curiosa: fui el único fotográfo que retrató a Montgomery Cliff durante el tiempo que vivió en España, concretamente el Benidorm, en el año 1966 y en la misma casa donde yo vivía en la calle Tomás Orduño, era mi amigo y nadie le reconocía cuando íbamos paseando por la calle, estaba muy gordo y muy deteriorado. La Agencia EFE debe de guardar aquellas fotos que aparecieron en todos los periódicos cuando él ya no estaba en España.

30.1.09

Judgment At Nuremberg





Studio: MGM Home EntertainmentGenre: WarMPAA Rating: Director: Theatrical Release: N/AHome Video Release: N/ACast: N/APublished ID: 438067UPC: 027616911148,
Plot: After the end of World War II, the world gradually became aware of the full extent of the war crimes perpetrated by the Third Reich. In 1948, a series of trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany, by an international tribunal, headed by American legal and military officials, with the intent of bringing to justice those guilty of crimes against humanity. However, by that time most of the major figures of the Nazi regime were either dead or long missing, and in the resulting legal proceedings American judges often found themselves confronting the question of how much responsibility someone held who had just followed orders. Judgment at Nuremberg is a dramatized version of the proceedings at one of these trials, in which Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) is overseeing the trials of four German judges -- most notably Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) and Emil Hahn (Werner Klemperer) -- accused of knowingly sentencing innocent men to death in collusion with the Nazis. Representing the defense is attorney Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell), while prosecuting the accused is U.S. Col. Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark). As the trial goes on, both the visiting Americans and their reluctant German hosts often find themselves facing the legacy of the war, and how both of their nations have been irrevocably changed by it. Judgment at Nuremberg also features notable supporting performances by Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, and Montgomery Clift. Originally written and produced as a play for television, the screen version of Judgment at Nuremberg was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, with Maximilian Schell and Abby Mann taking home Oscars for (respectively) Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

12 Angry Men

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Music Box

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2012

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24 City

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The Defiant Ones

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The Accidental Husband

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The Dawning

Adam

Marlene

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Criss Cross
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29.1.09

Red River.- comentario de Judith M. Kass

Introducción:

El guión de Río Rojo, un relato disimulado de la saga del rancho King de Texas, fue escrito por Borden Chase y Charles Schnee a partir de "The Chrisholm Trail", un relato de Chase publicado en el Saturday Evening Post.

Un breve prólogo expone los hechos que configurarán la acción principal y presenta a los tres protagonistas: Tom Dundson, Matthew (Matt) Garth y el amigo de Dunson, Groot, interpretados por John Wayne, Montgomery Clift y Walter Bennan.

Sinopsis:

La narración nos traslada a catorce años más tarde y empieza con la salida de la primera conducción de ganado a lo largo de Chisholm Trail, con una longitud de 1000 millas, desde el norte de Río Grande hasta Abilene (Kansas). Matthew, recién lklegado de la guerra civil que ha arruinado al Sur y ha obligado a Dunson a llevarse su ganado hacia el norte, ayuda a guiar la expedición. Durante el trayecto, empujado por la preión de tener que salvar el ganado, Dunson adopta un actitud cada vez más despiadada, matando a los desertores y amenazando a los otros con latigazos o la horca. Pero Matthew se pone del lado de los amotinados y le arrebata el mando a Dunson. Consigue llevarlos hasta Abilene, donde se rumorea que hay ferrocarril, en lugar e Sedalia (en Missouri), que era su destino inicial, y que está mucho más lejos.

Una vez allí, se enfrenta a Dunson, que ha jurado matarlo. Los dos hombres empiezan a luchar, pero su encarnizada pelea es interrumpida por Tess Millay (Joanne Dru), una bailarina de salón cuya compaía habían salvado de un ataque indio, Matt y sus hombres. El enfado de la chica, la pistola que dispara para calmarles y la lógica con que les expone que Dunson nunca podrá matar a Matt, porque los dos hombre se quieren demasiado, consigue resolver el conflicto y favorece la reconciliación.

La interpretación de Montgomery Clift:

Clift, que había aprendido a montar a caballo en una academia militar de Munich durante un viaje con su madre y hermanos, pasó mucho tiempo e invirtió un considerble esfuerzo para conseguir dominar la técnica de los vaqueros. Perfeccionó una sinuosa manera de caminar para su personaje y se entrenó para saltar al estribo mientras montaba su caballo.
Noah Beery Jr., ue interpreta al vaquero Buster, se hizo amigo de Clift durante el rodaje y recuerda:
"Lo que más le gustó fue convertirse en un buen vaquero y un jinete. Nunca pidió ayuda para conseguirlo, pero siempre lo miraba todo muy de cerca. Siempre observaba a los expertos en el tema".
El resultado fue que tanto dándole vueltas a un lazo para controlar el ganado como liando un cigarrillo para tendérselo a Dunson, Clift parece totalmente natural, tan relajado cuando lleva su silla al campamento como cuando esgrime una pistola.
La interpretación de Clift es tranquila y nada ostentosa. Sabía que no podía superar a Wayne, ni física ni dramáticamente, por lo que siguió los consejos de Hawks e interpretó con contención cada secuencia, observando los apartes entre dos hombres que hablan, como Dunson y Groot, con una intensidad que requiere mucha atención por su profundidad.
Clift es tan menudo que parece casi abrumado bajo el peso de su sombrero, pero se le ve a sus anchas en sus ropas de vaquero, murmurando algunos de sus diálogos mientras se tapa la boca con la mano, hablando dentro de una taza mientras toma café, o acariciándose la nariz en un gesto que quiere imitar a su padre.
Las escenas de amor con Joanne Dru, las primeras que realizó en el cine, despliegan la tierna sensibilidad e intensidad que se convertirían en su sello personal a lo largo de su carrera.



28.1.09

Entrevista a Olivia de Havilland

Fue la pareja de Montgomery Clift en The Heiress (La Heredera, 1949). Concedió esta entrevista en 1978. Cabe recordar que la gran actriz aún vive.

Extracto donde habla de la película:

- You won your second Oscar for your performance as Catherine Sloper in The Heiress. How did you come at that role of this terribly shy young woman who changes so?

I saw her in the play, wonderfully played by Wendy Hiller, a brilliant performance, but very stylized. It was an adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square, as you know. And I thought, "I see another way to play Catherine," because stylization will not work on film. It would be artificial. I just knew, at the end of the second act, I had to play Catherine. I had to do it, and I was, of course, by now, completely independent and could make my own decisions to take my own initiatives. So, I thought of the directors who would have a particular feel for this material and whom I admired. Two of them I had worked with, and the third I had not worked with. The first two were caught up in other commitments and were not free. The third one had just founded, together with two other directors -- Capra and George Stevens -- his own independent film company, Liberty Films at Paramount, and that man was Willie Wyler. So my agent persuaded him to say nothing to anyone, to get on the train, go to New York, see The Heiress, and he, of course, was looking for material. It was quite wonderful. Never will forget the night I knew he had arrived, the day he arrived in New York, and I knew he would go straight to the theater to see the play, and he had promised to call me afterwards. Well, I waited for that phone call, and I waited, and it came, and he said, "I've seen it. I like it. Let's do it."
And, we did.

- The chill between your character, Catherine Sloper, and her father is very powerful. It's a very strong feeling when one is watching the film. I gather that on the set, there was a bit of a chill as well with the actor who played your father.

Ralph Richardson was an extremely distinguished and gifted English artist. He was quite cool to me, and frightfully English, really. Really a wonderful artist, revered to this day in the profession, but he would do rather naughty things. He was a glove flapper. That is a British theater trick. There was one scene with the two of us, it was an intimate scene and it was very important that Catherine and all her feelings captured the audience's attention fully. Ralph Richardson? The father? Glove flapping. This distracted me in rehearsals terribly, just as an actress, but what I was worried about was Catherine. The attention of the audience had to be on her without a distraction like that. Willie was very impressed by Ralph. I went to him and I asked him, "What about that glove flapping?" He said, "Don't worry. I've framed it so the gloves are out." I still had to put up with the terrible distraction, but it didn't matter. I knew that Catherine was protected.

- Why didn't Wyler make him stop? Do you think he wanted you to feel insecure?

I often wonder, because Willie was really quite rude to me on the set, in that he would sit with Ralph. They would sit together, engage him in conversation, ignore me completely as we were waiting for a scene to be lit, and I would be sitting there like Cinderella in my little chair, nobody speaking to me. None of the two gentlemen speaking, no one paying any attention to me at all, and it is entirely possible that Willie did that deliberately to make me feel sort of inadequate and sort of uninteresting and well, certainly not the focus of attention, I'll tell you that.

- Very much the way the character of Catherine feels in her own home.

He may have done that quite deliberately. I hadn't thought about it until this question came up.


- What was Montgomery Clift like to work with?

Naughty. It was his second picture. Red River had not yet been released, but people had seen it and knew he was marvelous in it. So he came to play Morris Townsend in The Heiress. He had a Polish lady friend who was apparently a highly respected coach, a theater coach, a very talented woman, and she would be in back of the stage. He would work out every one of his scenes with the Polish lady. I knew that when he was working with me, he wasn't working with me at all. He was working with the Polish woman in our scenes together. It was most peculiar, but I decided I've got to make use of this in some fashion, and I managed psychologically to do that, because in fact, the character of Morris Townsend really is giving a performance. So I was able to get around that psychologically, but when we would finish a scene, he would look up to see whether she nodded. If she didn't, he would say, "Can we do the scene again?" This wasn't fun for me.
It wasn't fun for anyone, and it certainly wasn't for William Wyler, a very distinguished man, as the director of the film. One day, we came on the set. It was a long and difficult scene, and he said, "I don't know what this scene is all about. I want you to show me. Just get up there. Start there with your scripts, and just show me what this scene is all about." Well, it was frightful. There we were stumbling along, and we exchange, say, ten lines, and he would say, "Stop. I want you to go back to the beginning. Keep this little exchanges you made, say, with the third exchange of lines. Leave everything else out. Do something different. I don't care what you do, as long as it's different, but keep just that." So we would do that, and then he would say, "Stop. Keep the first exchange. Then I want you to keep the sixth exchange. Drop everything else. Start again." We did that for four hours, and I think Montie Clift realized that perhaps he should kind of work things out with William Wyler and Miss De Havilland.

- And not the Polish woman? [Se está refiriendo a Mira Rostova]
But she was still about, I believe, nonetheless. That was a unique experience.
Merece la pena leer la entrevista completa donde habla de toda su carerra, sus 2 Oscar, su otra pareja de cine, Errol Flynn, su infancia en Japón y cómo no, de su hermana, Joan Fontaine.

27.1.09

Posando para hoy

27 enero 1949


(Hace 60 años)

(Tenía 28 años)

25.1.09

Artículo de Filmreference

* En esta web de cine, encontramos una biografía y un recopilatorio de libros y artículos sobre el actor, además de su filmografía ordenada por años, con el director y el nombre del personaje que interpreta Montgomery Clift.






Nationality:



American. Born: Edward Montgomery Clift in Omaha, Nebraska, 17 October 1920. Career: 1933–34—first stage experience for amateur theatrical group in Sarasota, Florida; 1935—Broadway debut in Fly Away Home; 1942—joined the Group Theater in New York; 1945—first starring role on Broadway in Foxhole in the Parlor; 1947—co-founder, Actors Studio in New York; 1948—release of first two films Red River and The Search; three-film contract with Paramount; 1949—refusal of role in Sunset Boulevard resulted in cancellation of contract by Paramount; 1953—starring role on Broadway in The Sea Gull; 1956—three-film contract with MGM; 1957—face permanently scarred as a result of automobile accident; 1960s—progressive emotional and physical decline. Died: In New York City, 23 July 1966.






Films as Actor:


1948
The Search (Zinnemann) (as Ralph Stevenson); Red River (Hawks) (as Matthew Garth)
1949
The Heiress (Wyler) (as Morris Townsend)
1950
The Big Lift (Seaton) (as Danny MacCullough)
1951
A Place in the Sun (Stevens) (as George Eastman)
1953
I Confess (Hitchcock) (as Father Michael William Logan); From Here to Eternity (Zinnemann) (as Robert E. Lee "Prew" Prewitt); Stazione termini (Indiscretion of an American Wife; Terminal Station; Indiscretion) (de Sica) (as Giovanni Doria)
1957
Raintree County (Dmytryk) (as John Wickliff Shawnessy)
1958
The Young Lions (Dmytryk) (as Noah Ackerman); Lonelyhearts (Donehue) (as Adam White)
1959
Suddenly Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz) (as Dr. John Cukrowicz)
1960
Wild River (Kazan) (as Chuck Glover)
1961
The Misfits (Huston) (as Perce Howland); Judgment at Nuremberg (Kramer) (as Rudolph Petersen)
1962
Freud (Freud—The Secret Passion) (Huston) (as Sigmond Freud)
1966
The Defector (L'Espion; Lautlose Waffen) (Levy) (as Prof. James Bower)




Publications
On CLIFT: books—

Huston, John, An Open Book, New York, 1972.
LaGuardia, Robert, Monty: A Biography of Montgomery Clift, New York, 1977.
Bosworth, Patricia, Montgomery Clift: A Biography, New York, 1978.
Kass, Judith, The Films of Montgomery Clift, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1981.
Fernandez, Lluis, Monty Clift: Pasion Secreta, Barcelona, 1989.
Hoskyns, Barney, Montgomery Clift: Beautiful Loser, London, 1991.
McCann, Graham, Rebel Males: Clift, Brando, and Dean, London, 1991.
Parker, John, Five for Hollywood, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1991.
Kalfatovic, Mary C., Montgomery Clift: A Bio-Bibliography, Westport, Connecticut, 1994.
Leonard, Maurice, Montgomery Clift, London, 1997.

On CLIFT: articles—



Hamilton, J., "Montgomery Clift," in Look (New York), July 1949.
Current Biography 1954, New York, 1954.
Cole, C., "Eyes that Say More than Words," in Films and Filming (London), September 1956.
Obituary in New York Times, 24 July 1966.
Zinnemann, Fred, "Montgomery Clift," in Sight and Sound (London), Autumn 1966.
Roman, Robert C., "Montgomery Clift," in Films in Review (New York), November 1966.
Gow, Gordon, "Closer to Life," in Films and Filming (London), April 1975.
Bosworth, Patricia, "Montgomery Clift: First of a New Breed," in Close-Ups: The Movie Star Book, edited by Danny Peary, New York, 1978.
"Montgomery Clift," in Ecran (Paris), March 1978.
Reed, Rex, "Montgomery Clift," in The Movie Star, edited by Elisabeth Weis, New York, 1981.
Lippe, Richard, "Montgomery Clift: A Critical Disturbance," in CineAction! (Toronto), no. 17, 1989.
Purtell, Tim, "No Place in the Sun," in Entertainment Weekly (New York), 23 July 1993.
"Montgomery Clift," Stars (London), no. 27, 1996.
Chase, D. "Watershed," Film Comment (New York), no. 32, November/December 1996.


Montgomery Clift (right) in Judgment at Nuremberg

* * *

Among the 17 films that Montgomery Clift appeared in, it is impossible to point to any one role as "defining" Clift's image on screen, in the way that A Streetcar Named Desire and Rebel without a Cause established Brando's and James Dean's personalities in the public's mind. Yet Clift was one of the first actors of his generation to capture the attention of moviegoing audiences with performances that were sensitive, complex, and deeply introspective in nature. The combination of intensity and vulnerability that he brought to his characters—qualities magnified in later years by the car accident that destroyed his matinee-idol good looks and compounded the problems of an already troubled personality—was unique in 1948, when Clift was catapulted to stardom by the release of his first two films, The Search (for which he received an Oscar nomination) and Red River.

Red River in particular represents an important juncture in film history, pairing Clift with John Wayne in a genre usually defined by its rigid codes of male behavior. The central conflict in Howard Hawks's film, however, is between Wayne's brand of brutal, bullying masculinity and Clift's quiet blend of toughness and compassion. Theirs is a clash of reason and brute strength, and although their reconciliation takes the form of a violent physical confrontation, the role of Matthew Garth clearly presents Clift as an alternative to the rugged, unyielding protagonists of traditional Westerns. It was a part that heralded a shift in the characteristics that would define screen heroes in the decade to come.

Clift portrayed another man challenging stereotypical views of masculinity—this time in the U.S. military—in From Here to Eternity. As Prewitt, the bugler and former boxer who silently stands up to the harassment of his fellow soldiers when he refuses to reenter the ring after blinding a man, Clift gives one of his strongest performances. In the role that brought him his third Oscar nomination (the second was for A Place in the Sun), he conveys both the courage and the inner torment of a man whose unshakable moral convictions form the heart of his sense of self-worth, yet cause him to be labeled a coward. The complexity that Clift brings to the character is a trait that marks his work as a whole, charging his performances with an underlying pain that few actors of his day dared to reveal.

These qualities were a central part of Clift's relationships with women in films. Clift never overwhelms women in the manner of Gable or Flynn but attracts them instead with an almost hypnotic emotional power that often seems to arise from some deep inner need. This is especially true of his films with Elizabeth Taylor, whose dark beauty made her an ideal physical match for Clift on the screen. In both A Place in the Sun and Raintree County, the similarity between the two is so striking that they might almost be brother and sister, and there is an erotic tension in their work together that reaches its climax in the former film's extraordinary close-ups of the couple's romantic scenes. Clift's vulnerability is also a factor in his relationship with Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity and, on a platonic level, in the understanding and friendship between his character and that of Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits.

The tension and internal conflict in Clift's screen persona form the basis for his portrayals of the priest in Hitchcock's I Confess and Noah Ackerman, the Jewish soldier battling anti-Semitism, in The Young Lions. Each man is placed at odds with society by his religious convictions, and Clift conveys the hidden pain of both Father Michael's struggle with his conscience and Ackerman's scrappy refusal to tolerate religious slurs. Clift's intensity took on an increasingly unsettling quality in the films following his accident (which occurred during the filming of Raintree County), and in Suddenly Last Summer, The Misfits, and Freud, in which he played the title role, there is a tightly wound, neurotic edge to the characters that is both compelling and disturbing. In Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg this quality reaches its peak in Clift's brief supporting role as a mildly retarded man testifying against Nazi war criminals. It is a riveting performance, jarringly real and often painful to watch, and it brought Clift his fourth Academy Award nomination. It is this sense of emotional risk-taking that makes Clift a magnetic presence in even his less effective roles and which places his best work next to that of the finest actors of his generation.

With the recent revelation of the fact of Clift's bisexuality, one is able to see more into the correlation between his star personality (that of vulnerability, sensitivity, and almost effeminate masculinity closer to androgyny) and the real-life Clift (whose swinging sexuality and unsettling dissatisfaction throughout life mirrors and projects a troubled soul onto the big screen). Clift's own claim regarding this uncertainty in him reveals more than a touch of stubbornness and pride: "I don't want to be labeled as either a pansy or a heterosexual. Labeling is so self-limiting" (quoted by Graham McCann in Rebel Males). Throughout Clift's career, one sees a wide range of roles played, each of them nothing short of constant erotic tensions coming not only from the dramatic characters or his acting but also from a lifelong felt and lived conflict of an unsettled sexuality.

—Janet E. Lorenz, updated by Guo-Juin Hong

24.1.09

Stazione Termini.- canción Autumn in Rome

La canción Autumn in Rome forma parte de la banda sonora de la película Stazione Termini (Indiscretion of an American wife, 1953). Fue escrita por Paul Weston y Sammy Cahn e interpretada por Patti Page.

Esta es la partitura:



En este post hablo de la banda sonora de la película.

23.1.09

El coche de A place in the sun

In this filme, Liz Taylor drives a 1949 Cadillac convertible

22.1.09

Paul Murphy - Montgomery Clift 7" (1985)



Un disco de Paul Murphy, de 1985, que llevo por título "Montgomery Clift" y aparece el actor en la portada (es un fotogramas muy conocido de Stazione Terimini). Una rareza, de hecho no he podido localizar al músico en Intenet. La información la he recogido de este blog:

A real gem I picked up a while back, a mid 80's 7" single from Paul Murphy and Doug Dinadell recorded right here in my hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona at Cereus Studios.I'm sure these guys were in other bands but I haven't been able to track down any more information on either of them.

Paul Murphy - Vocals, Drums
Doug Dinadell - All Guitars, Bass
Produced By Paul Murphy.

21.1.09

Ficha en Cine 365

* Aunque la biografía de esta web es breve incluye datos interesantes que no siempre se conocen:



Nombre: Montgomery Clift
Fecha de nacimiento: 17/10/1920
Lugar de nacimiento: en Omaha, Nebraska (Estados Unidos).
Nacionalidad: Estados Unidos.

Nació el 17 de octubre de 1920, en Omaha, Nebraska (Estados Unidos).

Después de establecerse en Nueva York, viaja a Chicago y por distintos puntos del continente europeo; ingresa en la escuela privada de Saint Moritz, en Suiza, por espacio de un año; escribe la pieza teatral The Conversion of King Cloris; debuta sobre los escenarios con As Husbands Go (1933), en Sarasota, Florida; con tan sólo catorce años aparece en Fly Away Home, cuya dirección escénica corre a cargo de Thomas Mitchell (1934).Nominado al Oscar al Mejor Actor por Los ángeles perdidos (1948), por Un lugar en el sol (1951) y por De aquí a la eternidad (1953); Nominado al Oscar al Mejor Actor Secundario por Vencedores o vencidos / El juicio de Nüremberg (1961). Hijo del vicepresidente del Omaha International Bank William Brooks Clift.

En un artículo aparecido en Films & Filming, C. Cole se refería a Montgomery Clift con el título Eyes that Say More than Words ("Los ojos que dicen más que las palabras"). Una síntesis acertada del poder hipnótico que emana Clift en la gran pantalla. Montgomery Clift constituye una personalidad singular dentro del cine, carente del aura mitológica que envuelve a sus compañeros de "método" y de generación, Marlon Brando y James Dean. Probablemente se deba a que el actor de Nebraska nunca accedió a un tipo de film que marcara un modelo de interpretación a seguir, como sí lo hicieron Brando y Dean. A pesar de sus raíces comunes en el Actors Studio, desde un principio Clift siguió unas directrices propias, sin recurrir a un despliegue de expresiones corporales y concentrando su fuerza dramática en un rostro que transmite un magnetismo especial, a caballo entre el sentimiento de ternura y de angustia. Pese a las reticencias iniciales de su compañero de reparto John Wayne, Clift salvó con una cierta amplitud su primer compromiso ante las cámaras en Río Rojo. Aunque representaba prácticamente la antítesis como intérprete de William Holden, Clift había sido propuesto para recrear al periodista Joe Gillis en El crepúsculo de los dioses. Así pues, Clift dio por concluido su contrato con la Paramount, decantándose a partir de entonces por una serie de papeles que prestigiarían su trayectoria --George Eastman en Un lugar en el sol, el padre Michael en Yo confieso y Robert E. Lee Prewitt en De aquí a la eternidad, una emotiva traslación cinematográfica de la obra de James Jones, un autor con el que trabajaría en diversos proyectos, infelizmente abortados. Tras una incursión en el mercado europeo con la confección de Estación Termini --una muestra de neorrealismo que entronca con los postulados de su segundo film, Ángeles perdidos-- y la representación escénica del clásico de Anton Chejov La gaviota, Montgomery Clift vivió el momento más delicado de su carrera y de su corta existencia. Los médicos tuvieron que reconstruir un rostro desgarrado a causa de las múltiples lesiones y heridas que sufrió como consecuencia de un accidente automovilístico durante un descanso del rodaje de El árbol de la vida. Por tanto, se cernía un interrogante sobre el futuro de un actor que cumplía unas expectativas superiores incluso que James Dean, fallecido en otro terrible accidente de carretera unos meses antes.

El apoyo recibido por actores como Kevin McCarthy y Elizabeth Taylor --en una relación casi maternal que se percibe en sus recreaciones conjuntas en el celuloide-- o de directores como Edward Dmytryk y Elia Kazan, le procuraron una continuidad laboral que acabaría por perpetuar una imagen atormentada y enfermiza que permanece en la memoria del espectador cuando se hace referencia a Monty Clift. Así pues, su segunda etapa cinematográfica está marcada por una serie de películas que reproducen la tragedia y el fatalismo a través de los ojos y el rostro de Montgomery Clift (Lonelyhearts, Vidas rebeldes, Freud, pasión secreta). Durante el rodaje en De repente, el último verano, Montgomery Clift ya había dado muestras de su frágil estado psicológico derivado de una adicción al alcohol y a algunos estimulantes. Pero en su penúltimo film, Freud, pasión secreta, su composición del insigne doctor austríaco Sigmund Freud era el espejo de un hombre abatido, descompuesto y aquejado de una ceguera parcial que hacía si cabe aún más patética su encorvada figura. Era prácticamente el adiós a un actor que en condiciones normales hubiera dominado el espacio cinematográfico, al menos, durante los años sesenta y setenta.

Murió el 23 de julio de 1966, en Nueva York (Estados Unidos), víctima de una obstrucción de la arteria coronaria

20.1.09

Unfinished Lives 2, What If?

¿Qué hubiera pasado si Montgomery Clift y Marilyn Monroe no hubieran muerto tan jóvenes?

Eso se plantea esta cinta de ficción.

This is an audiobook on cassette tape, or book on tape. Unfinished Lives 2, What If? by Dove audio books, ISBN 0-7871-1083-3. This tape contains two fictional accounts, of the lives of film stars Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe, postulating what their lives might have been if they had not died young. From the package: "Two of Hollywood's biggest screen legends, Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe, died long before their prime, but their future lives are delicately told with imagination and spirit."
" They both died too early. Despite their adulation and success, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift's lives were not fully realized. Unfinished Lives 2 picks up where they left off, imagining a world where both of these celluloid heroes are given the chance to fulfill their true destinies. In this extraordinary, imaginative collection, 2 writers create a world that is familiar, yet very much changed. They imagine - with utter realism - what it would have been like if Monroe had continued making classic films after Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch, and if Clift had further matured as an actor after his landmark performances in the likes of Red River and A Place in the Sun."
Montgomery Clift by Paul Rosenfeld, performed by Adrian Pasdar.
Marilyn Monroe by Vernon Scott, performed by Joanna Cassidy.
Total playing time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes.

19.1.09

Montgomery Clift Reviews

En la web Top Ten Reviews se analiza el ránking que ocupa cada una de las pelícua del actor según la demanda que tengan. También se clasifican por décadas y géneros. Su ránking total es de 2.8543.
En primer lugar aparece Red River con 3.3925 , en último lugar The Defector con 0.0001. Todas sus películas (exceoto The efector y el documental de 1983) se pueden adquirir directamente.

18.1.09

Retrato (13)

Han hecho este fotomontaje con dos conocidas fotografías de Montgomery Clift (sobre todo la de perfil en color).

17.1.09

Biografía en Cine Forever

Montgomery Clift: sus películas

Actor

Nació el 17 de octubre de 1920 en Omaha, Nebraska, Estados Unidos
Murió el 23 de Julio de 1966 en New York, New York, Estados Unidos
Nombre de Pila: Edward Montgomery Clift
Estatura: 5’10” (1.78 mts.)

Nominado en Tres ocasiones al Oscar de Mejor Actor y en Una al de Mejor Actor Secundario, sin ganarlo en ninguna de ellas.
1939.- Hay Fever (Película para television filmada en forma experimental)
1948.- The Search (LA BUSQUEDA) Ralph ‘Steve’ Stevenson (Nominado al Oscar de Mejor Actor)
1948.- Red River (RIO ROJO) Matthew ‘Matt’ Garth
1949.- The Heiress (LA HEREDERA) Morris Townsend
1950.- The Big Lift (SUCEDIO EN BERLIN) Sgt. 1st Class Danny MacCullough
1951.- A Place in the Sun (AMBICIONES QUE MATAN) George Eastman (Nominado al Oscar de Mejor Actor)
1953.- I Confess (MI SECRETO ME CONDENA) Fr. Michael William Logan
1953.- Stazione Termini (INDISCRECION DE UNA ESPOSA) Giovanni Doria
1953.- From Here to Eternity (DE AQUI A LA ETERNIDAD) Pvt. Robert E. Lee ‘Prew’ Prewitt (Nominado al Oscar de Mejor Actor)
1957.- Raintree County (EL ARBOL DE LA VIDA) John Wickliff Shawnessy
1958.- Lonelyhearts (CORAZONES SIN DESTINO) Adam White
1958.- The Young Lions (LOS DIOSES VENCIDOS) Noah Ackerman
1959.- Suddenly, Last Summer (DE REPENTE EN EL VERANO) Dr. Cukrowicz
1960.- Wild River (RIO SALVAJE) Chuck Glover
1961.- The Misfits (LOS INADAPTADOS) Perce Howland
1961.- Judgment at Nuremberg (JUICIO DE NUREMBERG) Rudolph Petersen (Nominado al Oscar de Mejor Actor Secundario)
1962.- Freud (PASIONES SECRETAS) Sigmund Freud

1966.- The Defector (EL DESERTOR) Prof. James Bower

Nota: En sentido estricto la primera película en que participó Montgomery Cluft fue en “RIO ROJO”, filmada en entre junio y octubre de 1946, pero estrenada hasta el 30 de septiembre de 1948, en tanto “LA BUSQUEDA” se rodó entre abril y octubre de 1947, pero su estreno ocurrió el 24 de marzo de 1948 y como en Estados Unidos la secuencia de la filmografía se da conforme a su fecha de rodaje, aparece siempre como su primera película “LA BUSQUEDA”. Los títulos en español corresponden al que se utilizó para su estreno en México).

Escrito por Gustavo Aturo de Alba 4 de Mayo de 2008

15.1.09

Red River.- BSO

La banda sonora de Red River (Río Rojo, 1948) fue compuesta por Dimitri Tiomkin, que aparece debajo en plena composición.





La productora Marco Polo reeditó la banda sonora en julio de 2003.

Estos son los datos de la grabación y la lista de temas:

(English text)

Recorded at Mosfilm Studio, Moscow, Russia in February and March, 2002. Performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Choir conducted by William Stromberg.

Track listing
1. Main Title (01:30)
2. Dunson Heads South (04:46)
3. Red River Camp (01:28)
4. The Red Menace Strikes (01:34)
5. The Lone Survivor (02:15)
6. Birth of Red River D (03:15)
7. Mexican Burial (00:58)
8. Growth of the Dunson Empire (01:46)
9. Roundup (00:27)
10. Suspense At Dawn (01:07)
11. On To Missouri (01:35)
12. The Drive Moves North (03:03)
13. The Brazos Trail (00:30)
14. Stampede (02:45)
15. The Missing Cowboy (02:36)
16. Latimer Burial (01:01)
17. Thunder On The Trail (00:44)
18. Red River Ahead (01:25)
19. Red River Crossing (02:01)
20. Cottonwood Justice (00:59)
21. Dunson Swears Vengeance (01:24)
22. Comanche Arrows (00:39)
23. In Wait (01:34)
24. Fight For Life (02:19)
25. Vigil In The Night (01:01)
26. Foggy Night Surrender (01:54)
27. The Spectre Takes Form (00:43)
28. Interlude (00:21)
29. Out Of The Past (01:47)
30. Memory Of Love (01:30)
31. A Joyous Meeting (01:53)
32. Approach To Abilene (01:49)
33. A Big Day Of Abilene (01:39)
34. The Spectre Closes In (01:01)
35. A Message For Matt (02:49)
36. The Challenge (03:22)
37. The New Brand (02:21)

Total Duration: 01:03:51

Track listing contributed by Alan Rogers.

13.1.09

Brando y Clift: rivalidad o amistad

Esa cuestión es compleja de resolver. En este post, hago referencia a James F. Willis García-Talavera quien elabora un interesante artículo acerca de la prevalencia autobiográfica en el contraste de informaciones cinematográficas, basándose, como él mismo afirma, en autobiografías de reciente aparición, Brando, Heston, Kazan, etc.

Patricia Bosworth, en su obra "Montgomery Clift", publicada en 1978, dice textualmente:

"Monty conoció a Marlon Brando en 1944 cuando éste hacía I Remember Mama. En el Actors Studio ambos se reunían constantemente y era evidente para aquellos que les observaban que existía una tácita rivalidad entre ellos. Antes de que Brando acudiese allí, Monty era el joven actor más solicitado de Nueva York; Brando, con veintitrés años, competía con él. Ya se había ganado en Broadway la reputación de contar con un gran talento y ser un actor desconcertante. Vestía cazadora y tejanos, tenía un mapache en su apartamento y corría por la ciudad en una motocicleta a velocidades endemoniadas. Se describía a sí mismo en una biografía teatral como nacido en Calcuta, cuando en realidad procedía de Omaha al igual que Montgomery Clift."

Marlon Brando, en su autobiografía, titulada "Las canciones que mi madre me enseñó", publicada en 1994, contradice prácticamente todo lo anteriormente afirmado por Patricia Bosworth en su libro. En el capítulo vigesimosegundo dice:

"Otro amigo de aquella época que murió trágica y prematuramente fue Montgomery Clift. Los dos éramos de Omaha, y empezamos la carrera de actor más o menos en la misma época. Teníamos la misma agente, Edie van Cleve, y aunque él era cuatro años mayor que yo, a veces nos describían como rivales para los mismos papeles. Entonces yo era un joven competitivo y decidido a ser el mejor, y él un actor muy bueno, pero no recuerdo haber tenido jamás esa clase de sentimientos respecto a Monty. El recuerdo que guardo de él es sencillamente el de un buen amigo que tuvo un destino trágico.

Nos conocimos mientras yo trabajaba en Truckline Cafe. En aquel entonces, Monty había trabajado en varias obras. Yo tenía curiosidad por saber qué tal era, y fui a verlo en The Searching Wind. Era realmente bueno. Cuando terminó la obra, me presenté y fuimos juntos a cenar. Como compartíamos muchas experiencias similares, teníamos mucho de que hablar y trabamos amistad, aunque no muy íntima. Monty tenía una cualidad que resultaba muy atractiva: además de un gran encanto, poseía una poderosa intensidad emocional y, al igual que yo, sufría diversos conflictos, cosa con la que simpaticé. No sé con certeza si Monty era homosexual. Tiempo después otras personas me dijeron que lo era, pero he oído tantas mentiras acerca de mí mismo que ya no creo lo que la gente diga de los demás."

Frente a la supuesta rivalidad a que alude Patricia Bosworth, encontramos las declaraciones de simpatía y amistad, del propio Brando. Éste niega haber competido en ningún momento, y describe a Montgomery Clift como un actor muy bueno, que tenía un gran encanto y además una poderosa intensidad emocional. Otro dato erróneo es la obra en que trabajaba Marlon Brando cuando se conocieron. No era I remember Mama sino Truckline Cafe. Y, por último, lejos de renegar de su procedencia de Omaha, afirma que éste era otro punto de similitud entre ambos.

Sin duda, el tema da para varios post o tal vez se pueda resolver concluyendo que cada uno de los implicados veía el asunto desde su propio punto de vista. Montgomery Clift no escribió su autobigrafía pero Marlon Brando sí quiso ofrecerla al público.

De forma simpática, recreaba en un
post del año pasado, la rivalidad o similitud entre ambos aunque fuera en cuestión de moda.

12.1.09

Fotogramas, 12 en 1951


Artist : WANDA HENDRIX
Title : FOTOGRAMAS
Issue : 113
Country : SPAIN
Year/Date : 12/01/1951
Description : COVER ONLY . Other features : BOB HOPE (1 PAGE B/W FEATURE) / SUSAN HAYWARD (SMALL FEATURE WITH B/W PIC) / LUCIA BOSE (SMALL FEATURE WITH SMALL B/W PIC)MONTGOMERY CLIFT (1 PAGE B/W FEATURE) / GLORIA SWANSON (1 PAGE SUNSET BOULEVARD ARTICLE) / TOMAS BLANCO (FULL BACKCOVER B/W PIC) - DUE TO BIG SIZE OF THIS MAGAZINE IT WILL BE SENT CAREFULLY FOLDED

11.1.09

Tragic Star: The Life of Montgomery Clift

One look into his eyes and there’s more angst than a Cure album, more depth than an Anne Rice novel, and greater tragedy than Vincent Van Gogh. His name was Montgomery Clift, and he made seventeen films between 1946 and 1966.
Born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1920, Monty was 13 years old when he became interested in theatre. He and his twin sister and older brother lived and traveled with their mother overseas, because his father, who was in banking, was frequently away from the family. Monty’s expressive blue-green eyes and pretty-boy features made him quite popular as a child actor.

When the family moved to New York City in the 30’s, Monty took his acting to Broadway, where he appeared in over ten plays from 1935-1944. Clift’s mother managed her son’s acting career well after he became an adult. His relationship with his mother is well-documented – that she controlled every aspect of his life, including dating girls, whom she would interrogate upon meeting. It is speculated that this early relationship would be the catalyst for many of Monty’s later problems.
Clift received rave reviews from theatre critics. His rare talent for sensitivity and quiet strength translated well on film in 1946, with his role as John Wayne’s adopted son Matt in Red River. This was immediately followed by The Search(1948), The Heiress (1949, with Olivia deHavilland), A Place In The Sun (1950, with Elizabeth Taylor), for which he was nominated for an Oscar as the angst-ridden George Eastman, whose love for two women – one rich, the other working class – results in tragic circumstances. From Here To Eternity in 1952 earned him not only another Oscar nomination (he didn’t win) but acclamations for “the best role of his career”.

Monty Clift had a rare combination of pin-up looks and gift for acting that was unprecedented in Hollywood. Later, he would become the role model for such method actors like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Dennis Hopper. Every one of his co-stars would remark on how deeply Monty would get into his character, forcing them to re-evaluate their own acting skills and styles. Shelly Winters, his co-star in A Place In The Sun, said in a taped biography that “he[Monty] had this inner anguish, and it would show in his performance[sic]–his eyes would grow dark, he would sweat–he was like no one I ’d worked with before”. Elizabeth Taylor became close friends with Monty on that film set, and while they never had a romantic relationship, it was for both of them a “special friendship” that would last until the day Monty died. He would work with Taylor, drawing out emotions from her during scenework, and she often out-acted him in the three films that they made together.

Had Interview With A Vampire been written in the 1940’s instead of the 1970’s, Monty Clift would have made the ideal Louis, both physically and emotionally, with his trademark brand of androgynous beauty and inner torture. In 1949’s The Heiress, based on the novella Washington Square by Henry James, his character is Morris Townshend, a foppish, 19th century mercenary who woos plain-jane but wealthy Catherine (Olivia de Havilland), who is disowned by her father for wanting to marry Morris. She tells Morris this, and he deserts her on their wedding night. Seven years later he returns for her forgiveness, and she takes revenge by rejecting him. The last scene of the movie is of Monty Clift, as Morris, desperately banging on Catherine’s door, calling for her. De Havilland would recall, years later, that she received dozens of hate-mail from young female fans, wondering how she could have possibly rejected “their Monty”.

In 1953, Monty was cast in Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess, about a priest who hears the confession of a man who committed a murder then becomes a suspect himself. It is not one of Hitchcock’s best efforts, but Clift portrays Father Michael Logan with such intensity and heartfelt anguish, that it rescues an otherwise mundane and inferior script.

In the early 1950’s, Montgomery Clift seemed to have it all – good looks, talent, and offers for some of the best scripts in Hollywood– but underneath the glamour-boy persona was a deeply disturbed man. Some say because of his homosexuality, which at the time was unaccepted by society; some say a growing alcohol and painkiller depency, brought about by an illness he contracted in his youth. Others refer to an “inner pain that was not invented and could not be cured.” No one who knew him understood exactly what it was that brought about Monty’s behavior and attitude changes. He would on occasion withdraw into his bedroom in his New York City apartment, draw the blinds, and stay there for days. He turned down one stellar script after another, including East of Eden which would go to James Dean and On The Waterfront, which ended up in Marlon Brando’s hands. One thing for certain, he kept his homosexuality a secret from everyone he knew – making discreet trips to Ogunquin, Maine, where gay men could have trysts without being noticed, then to Fire Island, which in the 1960’s became a well-known gay getaway. Little is published about his homosexual affairs; he was fiercely determined to keep that aspect of himself under wraps. He even once remarked to a friend that he was concerned about how “he used his hands”, in a scene of a particular film – he didn’t want to come across as effeminate.

His painkiller dependency developed out of a condition known as “ameobic dysentery” an intestinal disorder that he contracted while in Mexico with a friend. At this time, the only treatment for the discomfort and sometimes, intense pain, was a limited diet and painkillers. Clift became fascinated with drugs of every kind and would hold extensive conversations with his pharmacist, learning about different kinds of medications and the effects they would have. The alcohol was another matter. Intensely shy around groups of people, especially at parties, Monty began social drinking, and, coupled with the painkillers he was always taking, it brought out personality traits that friends at first deemed “odd”. When his behavior began escalating from odd to annoying to downright infantile, i.e. he would throw tantrums in restaurants, act up during film shoots, and exhibit some bizarre personal habits. He would eat raw meat (sometimes right off the floor). He began seeing a psychiatrist. He found little help there; his doctor informed him, that, due to a stringent, discplined and rigid childhood, he was merely “acting out childish impulses.” Nevertheless, Clift would continue to see this psychiatrist for many years.

An automobile accident in 1956 would forever alter his appearance and his film career. Nearly all of the bones in his face were broken. Leaving a party at Elizabeth Taylor’s, while they both were in the middle of filming “Raintree County”, he nodded off behind the wheel of his 1955 Buick, and drove head-on into a telephone pole by the side of the road on the way down from Taylor’s secluded house in Beverly Hills. It was Taylor who ended up pulling him out from underneath the dashboard, and nursing his badly disfigured head until the ambulance arrived. It took eight weeks for Monty’s face and head to heal; there were no lacerations, so the injuries didn’t leave scars, but his nose, chin, lips, and the left side of his face would be changed forever. “Raintree County” resumed filming, and when it was released, audiences flocked to the cinema, even though the film was received lukewarmly, in order to observe the “pre-crash” and “post-crash” Monty. His drinking intensified. He became a bonafide alcoholic, touting with him on all film sets a grey thermos that he claimed contained only “fruit juice” but in fact contained a potent blend of vodka, fruit juice, and Demerol. Over the next ten years he would make eight films, all rather mediocre, except for “Suddenly Last Summer” with Elizabeth Taylor, based on the Tennesee Williams play, and “Judgement At Nuremberg” for which he would be nominated for yet another Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. A lawsuit with a film company in 1962 would halt his already faltering film career and, when Elizabeth Taylor offered up her salary as compensation for casting him with her in “Reflections In A Golden Eye”, he agreed to do a B-film “The Defector”, to prove to the studio he could still act.

Two months after the completion of “The Defector” he was found dead in his Manhattan apartment from a “massive coronary occlusion”.

Teresa Sanson

10.1.09

On the set

Es una foto encontrada al azar sin datos de con quién estaba hablando y en el rodaje de qué película.

9.1.09

El divorcio de Brooks y Eleanor Clift (documento)

En esta web jurídica, está publicada la sentencia de divorcio entre Brooks Clift, el hermano mayor de Montgomery Clift, ysu cuarta esposa, Eleanor Clift, que es periodista en la actualdad.
896 F.2d 1383
283 U.S.App.D.C. 85
Unpublished Disposition
Notice: D.C. Circuit Local Rule 11(c) states that unpublished orders, judgments, and explanatory memoranda may not be cited as precedents, but counsel may refer to unpublished dispositions when the binding or preclusive effect of the disposition, rather than its quality as precedent, is relevant.
Eleanor CLIFT, Plaintiff,
v.
Jo Anna CLIFT, Individually and as Personal Representative
of W. Brooks Clift.
No. 89-7204.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
March 6, 1990.
Before WALD, Chief Judge, and MIKVA and HARRY T. EDWARDS, Circuit Judges.
JUDGMENT
PER CURIAM.
1
This cause came to be heard on the appeal from the judgment of the District Court granting the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, and was briefed and argued by counsel. The issues have been accorded full consideration by the Court and occasion no need for a published opinion. See D.C.Cir. Rule 14(c). For the reasons stated in the accompanying Memorandum, it is
2
ORDERED and ADJUDGED, by the Court, that the judgment is affirmed.
3
The Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate herein until seven days after disposition of any timely petition for rehearing. See D.C.Cir. Rule 15.
MEMORANDUM
4
While appellee Eleanor Clift was married to her former, now deceased, husband, W. Brooks Clift, they bought a house that was titled to both of them. In 1981
Brooks and Eleanor Clift separated, leading to divorce in 1984. In 1982, Brooks and Eleanor Clift entered into a contractual agreement; the terms of their agreement provided, inter alia, for transfer of the jointly titled house to Eleanor Clift on certain conditions, and for the establishment of a trust fund for the children of Eleanor Clift and Brooks Clift. See Separation and Property Settlement Agreement, Aug. 18, 1982 ("Agreement"), reprinted in J.A. 48. Brooks Clift died in 1986, and, in the present action, his wife at the time of his death, Jo Anna Clift, represents his estate.
5
In the action below, Eleanor Clift brought suit seeking a judicial declaration that she was the sole owner of the house whose title she and Brooks Clift had jointly held and that she is trustee of $26,177.00, which she is to hold for the benefit of her children by Brooks Clift. In opposition, Jo Anna Clift counterclaimed for payment of an amount that, she argues, Eleanor Clift owed Brooks Clift on a promissory note that Eleanor Clift had given Brooks Clift pursuant to the Agreement. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court entered judgment for Eleanor Clift, holding that she had not defaulted on her obligations to Brooks Clift under the Agreement, and that, pursuant to the Agreement, she should hold in trust for the benefit of her and Brooks Clift's children any remaining obligations she has to Brooks Clift.
6
We uphold the District Court's decision solely on the ground that, even if Eleanor Clift owed Brooks Clift's estate a sum of money under the terms of the Agreement, that same Agreement also extinguished the debt and calls upon Eleanor Clift to hold the sum of the debt in trust for her and Brooks Clift's children.
7
Central to our disposition of this case are three paragraphs in the Agreement. Paragraph 7 provides the conditions under which Brooks Clift would transfer his interest in the house to Eleanor Clift. See Agreement p 7, reprinted in J.A. 52-53. Paragraph 8(c) of the Agreement states that, "[i]n the event of the death of either party prior to the completion or cessation by the last child of his college education, the Husband agrees to waive over to the Wife in trust for the children any sum due him from her pursuant to Paragraph 7 hereof...." Id. p 8(c), reprinted in J.A. 54 (emphasis added). Finally, Paragraph 13 of the Agreement provides:
8
Except as otherwise provided herein, all obligations due from one party to the other shall be extinguished by the death of either, and any such rights shall not accrue to the estate of the decedent.
9
Agreement p 13, reprinted in J.A. 55 (emphasis added).
10
Relying on paragraph 7, appellant Jo Anna Clift argues that Eleanor Clift failed to meet some of the conditions precedent for this transfer, namely, timely payment on the balance of a note from Eleanor Clift to Brooks Clift. In response, Eleanor Clift argues that she was entitled to offset against her debt to Brooks Clift certain Social Security payments that Brooks Clift should have turned over to Eleanor Clift for support of the children. We hold that, even if Jo Anna Clift was correct in her claim that Eleanor Clift was indebted to Brooks Clift's estate under the terms of paragraph 7--a question on which we take no position--paragraphs 8(c) and 13 clearly require that that debt be extinguished and held by Eleanor Clift in trust for her children. For that reason, the District Court's decision is hereby
11
Affirmed.

8.1.09

2 reportajes

"Montgomery Clift says: I'll do as I please"


"Flight from fear. Part II"
(la imagen es del rodaje de Raintree County -El árbol de la vida, 1957-)

7.1.09

Red River.- crítica de cine

Texto íntegro y original de la crítica que escribió Bosley Crowther del New York Times el 1 de octubre de 1948:

The Screen in Review; ' Red River,' Horse Opera With Montgomery Clift and John Wayne, Opens at Capitol

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Published: October 1, 1948

Up to a point in "Red River," which came to the Capitol yesterday, this opus is on the way towards being one of the best cow-boy pictures ever made. And even despite a big let-down, which fortunately comes near the end, it stands sixteen hands above the level of routine horse opera these days. So strap on your trusty six-shooters and race to the wind-swept Capitol, you lovers of good old Western fiction. It's round-up and brandin' time!

From the moment this Howard Hawks' super-special fades in on the open Western plains and picks up a wagon-train of settlers heading out towards the perilous frontier, it's plain that you're in for a picture with the genuine tang of the outdoors. For the beauty and scope of that first look is an unmistakable tip that Mr. Hawks has used real Western scenery for its most vivid and picturesque effects. And from the moment (right at the beginning) that John Wayne and Walter Brennan cut away from the train and strike off for their own realms, you know that you're riding with stout men.

That's the big thing about this picture: for at least two-thirds of the way, it's a down-to-earth story of cow-pokes and the tough, dangerous lives they used to lead. It's the story of a great migration of a cattle herd, said to be the first, from the breeding grounds in Texas to Kansas, along the Chisholm Trail. And it's the story of a desperate contention between two strong-minded men, a hard-bitten veteran and a youngster—or Mr. Wayne and Montgomery Clift.
So long as it sticks to cow-herding and the gathering clash between these two—a clash brought on by disagreement as to whether they should try the untrod trail—it rings with the clang of honest metal and throbs with the pulse of real life. For Mr. Hawks has filled it with credible substance and detail, with action and understanding, humor and masculine ranginess. He has made it look raw and dusty, made it smell of beef and sweat—-and he has got a stampede of cattle in it that makes you curl up with terror in your seat.

He has also got several fine performances out of a solidly masculine cast, topped off by a withering job of acting a boss-wrangler done by Mr. Wayne. This consistently able portrayer of two-fisted, two-gunned outdoor men surpasses himself in this picture. We wouldn't want to tangle with him. Mr. Clift has our admiration as the lean and leathery kid who does undertake that assignment, and he carries it off splendidly. As other rawhided cowhands, Mr. Brennan, John Ireland and Paul Fix gabble and gripe and act like cowpokes in a thoroughly entertaining way.

They do, that is, up to the sad point when the cattlemen meet a wagon-train which is being besieged by Indians and help beat the redskins off. Then the cowboys—and the picture—run smack into "Hollywood" in the form of a glamorized female, played by Joanne Dru. For she is the typical charmer, with a voice like Dorothy McGuire's, and the havoc she plays with the hero—and with the contents—is almost complete. The characters turn into actors and the story turns into old stuff. It ends with the two tenacious cowboys kissing and making up.

On the stage at the Capitol are Tony and Sally DeMarco, Buck Bubbles, Bobby May, Rose Marie and Nat Brandwynne and his orchestra.

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6.1.09

Montgomery Clift’s house goes on the market

Artículo sobre la última residencia del actor: on East 61st Street.

The online listing for the property at 217 East 61st Street states, “Lovely four story, sun-filled 18’ wide single family townhouse in the Treadwell Farm Historic District has most of its original details intact,” and sets the price at $5.5 million. Only in tiny type does it add that this was the house Montgomery Clift bought in 1960 (that he died here six years later doesn’t make it into the ad at all). Still, in the candle-burning fan-club world that surrounds Monty Clift, word of this particular house sale has spread fast.

Though he doesn’t quite have the status of Brando or Dean, Clift was the other great fifties rebel star, best remembered for From Here to Eternity and A Place in the Sun. He was also a deeply closeted figure whose double life kept him unhappy, drinking, and drugging, especially in his final years. (A 1957 car accident that wrecked his matinee-idol face and his career didn’t help.) Marilyn Monroe, who co-starred with Clift in The Misfits (pictured) and was a regular dinner guest at his house, called him “the only person I know who’s in worse shape than I am.”
This is the first time the house has been on the market since 1966, when the current owners bought it from Clift’s estate. A walk through the rooms with Michelangelo Capua—author of Montgomery Clift: A Biography—and Stribling broker Lee Ann Jaffee revealed the house’s recent past. The owners never did all that much renovating, and the living quarters are still largely as Clift knew them—presentable but definitely well used. The stairs creak; many original details are basically untouched. The built-in bookshelves he ordered are still there. So is the teak bar he built, a little thing with just enough space for one movie star to stand while mixing vodka cocktails. Capua ducked into the bathroom to look for the giant cabinet Clift installed for all his pills, but it’s long gone. For Capua, in fact, the tour invited déjà vu: Many of the subjects he interviewed for his book spoke about time spent in this house. A secretary had gone through the closets, to see if Clift had any women’s clothes stashed away. (He did.) One of the actor’s lovers, the late Ben Bagley, told of helping him paint the façade bright orange—now a faded ocher—and installing matching awnings that drew complaints from the neighbors.

The house has its own history beyond Clift’s few years there. President Theodore Roosevelt gave it to his daughter Alice as a wedding present in 1906, and Clift bought it from the Russian prince-in-exile Serge Obolensky. And the neighborhood still houses a few celebrities: Sally Jessy Raphael, Nick Ashford of Ashford & Simpson, and Bill Cosby all own property on the same block. Still, it’s the kind of place that—if it weren’t a four-story townhouse with a huge double parlor, private garden, seven working fireplaces, and five and a half bathrooms—would be relatively undistinguished, just your basic battered brownstone. And that means it’s unlikely to stay as it is. “I’m almost sure, unless a Monty fan buys it, that a new owner will do so much renovating that all the original features will disappear,” Capua said on the way out.

There’s not much left of the neighborhood Clift knew, either, though his restaurant of choice, the Isle of Capri, is still in business around the corner on Third Avenue. But one thing might finally make its appearance with a respectful renovation: a plaque reading MONTGOMERY CLIFT LIVED HERE 1960–1966, which Clift’s mother stipulated be installed when she sold the house. It’s nowhere to be seen—stolen long ago, presumably by a fan.

By Charles Casillo
Su carrera comprende 17 títulos entre 1948 y 1966. Trabajó con los grandes directores (Hawks, Hitchcock, Stevens, Zinnemann, Kazan, Huston, Wyler) y las grandes estrellas (Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe, Katherine Hepburn, Brando, Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor especialmente) de entonces.
Su carrera comprende 17 títulos entre 1948 y 1966. Trabajó con los grandes directores (Hawks, Hitchcock, Stevens, Zinnemann, Kazan, Huston, Wyler) y las grandes estrellas (Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe, Katherine Hepburn, Brando, Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor especialmente) de entonces.
Su carrera comprende 17 títulos entre 1948 y 1966. Trabajó con los grandes directores (Hawks, Hitchcock, Stevens, Zinnemann, Kazan, Huston, Wyler) y las grandes estrellas (Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe, Katherine Hepburn, Brando, Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor especialmente) de entonces.
The Right Profile
Lyric
Say, where did I see this guy?
In red river?
Or a place in the sun?
Maybe the misfits?
Or from here to eternity?

Everybody say, is he all right?
And everybody say, whats he like?
Everybody say, he sure looks funny.
Thats...Montgomery Clift, honey!

New York, New York, New York, 42nd street
Hustlers rustle and pimps pimp the beat
Monty Clift is recognized at dawn
He aint got no shoes and his clothes are torn

I see a car smashed at night
Cut the applause and dim the light
Monty's face is broken on a wheel
Is he alive? can he still feel?

Everybody say, is he all right?
And everybody say, whats he like?
Everybody say, he sure looks funny.
Thats...Montgomery Clift, honey!

Nembutol numbs it all
But I prefer alcohol

He said go out and get me my old movie stills
Go out and get me another roll of pills
There I go again shaking, but I aint got the chills