Montgomery Clift: As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” series, TCM will be devoting Aug. 9 to the four-time Oscar nominee who, had there been any cinematic justice, would have been a far bigger name than Marlon Brando or James Dean.
- TCM’s 2024 “Summer Under the Stars” schedule – Aug. 9: Turner Classic Movies will be airing 11 titles starring four-time Oscar nominee Montgomery Clift, one of the finest actors of the 1950s.
- This Montgomery Clift article includes a brief overview of two of his TCM movies: A Place in the Sun and I Confess.
TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars’ Aug. 9 schedule: 11 Montgomery Clift movies showcasing one of the finest actors of the mid-20th century
Turner Classic Movies’ 2024 “Summer Under the Stars” series continues on Aug. 9 with 11 titles starring Montgomery Clift (1920–1967), a four-time Academy Award nominee and one of the most compelling film actors of the 1950s and early 1960s.
There’s one TCM premiere: John Huston’s Freud / Freud: The Secret Passion, an unusual big-studio production (Universal) starring Clift at his most impassioned as the titular Austrian neurologist. (See TCM’s Montgomery Clift movie schedule further below. Most titles will remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
TCM will be presenting two titles that earned Clift Best Actor Oscar nods:
- Fred Zinnemann’s U.S./Swiss coproduction The Search (1948), starring Clift as a personable U.S. Army engineer who befriends a 10-year-old-or-so Auschwitz survivor (eventual Juvenile Oscar recipient Ivan Jandl) who wants to be reunited with his mother in post World War II Europe. (Set during the second Russia-Chechnya War, Michel Hazanivicius’ loose French-made 2014 remake stars Bérénice Bejo and Annette Bening.)
- George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun (1951).
Below is a brief glimpse at A Place in the Sun and at another Montgomery Clift movie airing on his “Summer Under the Stars” day, I Confess.
For the record, Clift was also a Best Actor Oscar nominee for Fred Zinnemann’s World War II drama From Here to Eternity (1953) and a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).
A Place in the Sun (1951)
A Paramount release, A Place in the Sun stars Montgomery Clift as a personable working-class youth who discovers that for most people of his background American social barriers are insurmountable and that the line separating the American Dream from the American Nightmare is so thin as to be invisible.
Based on Theodore Dreiser’s real-life-based* 1925 novel An American Tragedy and Patrick Kearney’s 1926 play of the same name, A Place in the Sun earned George Stevens a Best Director Oscar, while Shelley Winters – cast in the role of Clift’s frumpy, pregnant girlfriend – received a Best Actress nomination that should have gone instead to Ida Lupino for On Dangerous Ground. Or even to Elizabeth Taylor as Clift’s literal embodiment of all the American Dream has to offer.
A Place in the Sun’s credited screenwriters were Harry Brown and soon-to-be blacklisted Michael Wilson, who would later write/co-write screenplays for Salt of the Earth, and, without receiving screen credit, Friendly Persuasion and The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Named after the novel, Josef von Sternberg’s 1931 big-screen version isn’t as nearly polished as Stevens’, but it remains effective largely thanks to the usually mild-mannered Phillips Holmes’ unusually raw performance. The look of unadulterated hatred Holmes gives factory worker/pregnant girlfriend Sylvia Sidney shortly before their boat capsizes is one that can’t be forgotten.
Also of note, Woody Allen’s British-made 2005 drama Match Point is a clever ripoff of Dreiser’s novel. Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as an ambitious Irish tennis player (a far edgier version of Clift’s and Holmes’ characters), while Scarlett Johansson is the American woman standing in the way of his fully achieving his coveted social standing.
Which goes to show there’s nothing particularly “American” about either the American Dream or its flip side.
* The basis for An American Tragedy is the case of Chester Gillette, who was sent to the electric chair at age 24 in 1908 for the Upstate New York murder of his 20-year-old lover Grace Brown.
I Confess (1953)
I Confess, Alfred Hitchcock’s mix of suspense thriller and psychological study, is proof positive that Montgomery Clift should have accepted the role of lone U.S. Marshal Will Kane in Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 Western High Noon, which eventually earned Gary Cooper that year’s Best Actor Oscar.
Unlike Cooper, who not once allows audiences to question his decision to defend his small New Mexico town from a visiting trio of bandits, Clift would have left everyone wondering: Is Marshal Kane risking his life and his marriage (to Quaker Grace Kelly) because a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, or is he risking it all simply because he’s an obsessive sociopath?
There’s a good chance you’ll be asking that two-pronged question while watching I Confess, as you try to understand what exactly is motivating Clift’s Father Logan at Quebec City’s St. Marie’s Church to keep mum about German gardener Otto Keller’s (O.E. Hasse) murder confession: Is the sacredness of the confessional so inviolable that Father Logan will not only risk his life but also the lives of others?* How reasonable is that?
Generally considered a minor Alfred Hitchcock effort – 1953 reviews were mostly negative – in this writer’s opinion I Confess is one of the filmmaker’s best. Clift’s gripping performance is a key reason for its success.
As Clift’s romantic interest in his pre-priesthood days, Anne Baxter goes Hitchcock Blonde in a role originally inteded for Swedish import Anita Björk (Miss Julie).
George Tabori and William Archibald were credited for this adaptation of Paul Anthelme’s 1902 French play Nos deux consciences (“Our Two Consciences”).
* Quebec’s last execution took place in 1960. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976.
Immediately below is Montgomery Clift’s “Summer Under the Stars” schedule.
Montgomery Clift movies: TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars’ schedule (EDT) – Aug. 9
6:00 AM I Confess (1953)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, Brian Aherne, O.E. Hasse, Roger Dann, Dolly Haas.
95 min. Suspense | Psychological Drama.7:45 AM Lonelyhearts (1958)
Director: Vincent J. Donehue.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Dolores Hart, Maureen Stapleton, Jackie Coogan, Onslow Stevens.
108 min. Drama.9:30 AM Suddenly, Last Summer (1960)
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Mercedes McCambridge, Albert Dekker, Gary Raymond.
114 min. Mystery | Psychological Drama.11:30 AM Freud (1962)
Director: John Huston.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Susannah York, Larry Parks, Susan Kohner, Eileen Herlie, Fernand Ledoux, David McCallum.
139 min. Biographical Drama.2:00 PM The Young Lions (1958)
Director: Edward Dmytryk.
Cast: Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin, Hope Lange, Barbara Rush, May Britt, Maximilian Schell, Arthur Franz.
167 min. War.5:00 PM Raintree County (1957)
Director: Edward Dmytryk.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, Nigel Patrick, Lee Marvin, Rod Taylor, Agnes Moorehead, Tom Drake.
167 min. Period Drama.8:00 PM A Place in the Sun (1951)
Director: George Stevens.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere, Keefe Brasselle, Fred Clark, Raymond Burr.
122 min. Social Drama.10:15 PM The Heiress (1949)
Director: William Wyler.
Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins, Vanessa Brown, Ray Collins, Mona Freeman.
115 min. Drama.12:30 AM The Search (1948)
Director: Fred Zinnemann.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Aline MacMahon, Wendell Corey, Ivan Jandl, Jarmila Novotná, Leopold Borkowski.
105 min. Drama.2:30 AM Indiscretion of an American Wife (1954)
Director: Vittorio De Sica.
Cast: Jennifer Jones, Montgomery Clift, Gino Cervi, Richard Beymer, Paolo Stoppa.
63 min. Romance.3:45 AM The Big Lift (1950)
Director: George Seaton.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Paul Douglas, Cornell Borchers, Bruni Löbel, O.E. Hasse.
120 min. Drama.
notes/references
Montgomery Clift “Summer Under the Stars” movie schedule via the TCM website.
“Montgomery Clift Movies on TCM: 1 of 1950s’ Finest Actors” last updated in August 2024.