THE DEFECTOR *

"The Defector" was Montgomery Clift's last film; he would be dead shortly after the film's (very limited) release and in the UK it was heavily cut. It is, as the title suggests, a spy picture but it's a deadly dull one and Clift is terrible here. Watching him in this film it's hard to imagine that he was once the handsome and brilliantly talented young star of "A Place in the Sun" and "From Here to Eternity" Here he's almost comatose as a university professor spying for the CIA in East Germany where he encounters, amongst others, Hardy Kruger, never much of an actor but running rings round Monty. Even better, but in much too small a part, is Roddy McDowell as the unlikely CIA man who blackmails Clift into doing his nefarious deeds.

Considering Clift's mission is fraught with danger, the film totally lacks suspense, an element the director Raoul Levy seems singularly ill-equipped to handle. And yet, terrible as this film is, (and it is terrible), it's not completely without interest. It's fascinating, if more than a little sad, seeing fine actors make such fools of themselves as we watch them fall flat on their once-handsome faces. This one is for Clift completists only.