I Confess! Monty You Could Have Gone Beyond Marlon
I just saw I Confess again. Hadn't seen it for about 20 years. Monty, your performance is simply brilliant. Something is always going on with your characters. You can see it in your eyes. You aren't an actor waiting for your line cue; you are in total character mode. Your intense performance is in keeping with all of your previous movie work beginning with Red River. I knew you'd go far when I first cast you in "There Shall Be No Night."
I told you you could have beaten Marlon, you stupid fucking cunt. Marlon was the man-child, too self-absorbed in himself to be in the scene with other actors. You were the man! In the moment with other actors. You still had in you despite the accident with your last two brilliant roles in The Misfits and especially Freud, which was helped by you having a beard, so we weren't distracted by the facial surgery, and knowing what you once looked like. Had you not been a total royal fuck up, you could have beaten Marlon and carried the banner as the greatest American actor of the 20th Century. Instead, you had inferior actors like Steve McQueen, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton steal your thunder. You fucking schmuck.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | January 23, 2023 5:36 AM
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Clift didn't connect with other actors as a character. He interacted as himself, or with a layer of himself in the way.
He failed, in the main.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | January 22, 2023 10:20 PM
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Agreed OP. Clift was better. Much, much better.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | January 22, 2023 10:30 PM
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MC was miles above Marlon Brando in talent, imo. Brando was fed his lines and read his lines from cue cards and it showed.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | January 22, 2023 10:41 PM
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Read this. Not just gossip, but historical insight, particularly with Monty's first film, "Red River." Also did not know Monty and John Ireland got it on. News to me, and I pride myself (yes, intentional) on knowing the scuttle butt on all movie sets.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | January 22, 2023 11:01 PM
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I'd add Paul Newman to that list of inferior actors
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | January 22, 2023 11:03 PM
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Monty Clift was an incredible actor, one of my top favorites of the golden age (alongside Orson Welles, James Cagney, Robert Mitchum, and Charles Laughton) Way, way better than those method types who followed him and became more famous. Brando at least occasionally turned in a great performance. Newman never really rose above good, and Dean was just outright awful most of the time.
I feel a similar way about the equally underrated John Garfield, but Monty had a sensitivity that Garfield didn’t. In mediocre films like The Search or Wild River, his absolutely searing performances elevate the movie a few notches.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | January 22, 2023 11:09 PM
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I despise Frank Sinatra and will never forgive him for his cruelty to Monty. Never. Despicable bastard.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | January 22, 2023 11:11 PM
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He was fantastic in Red River.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | January 22, 2023 11:12 PM
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Barbara Rush....Christ, she was so much more beautiful then what she aged out to....weighs in
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | January 23, 2023 12:50 AM
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R10- Thanks for posting that article, I really enjoyed reading it.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | January 23, 2023 1:02 AM
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OP, you had me going before you ruined it with -
"two brilliant roles in The Misfits and especially Freud"
NO
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | January 23, 2023 1:07 AM
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What a miserable nasty thread opener. What the fuck is wrong with you OP? You fucking schmuck!
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | January 23, 2023 1:10 AM
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Clift could not do tough guy. Brando, far more versatile.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | January 23, 2023 2:42 AM
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R14 Eh, on that note Brando couldn't really do sensitive like Clift. He almost always came across brutish. The closest he came to conveying Clift's type of sensitivity was in a role originally Clift was signed to do - Reflections in a Golden Eye.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | January 23, 2023 3:43 AM
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R15....Much as Brando is brilliant in the role, would have died to see Monty do it, and Liz was ready to cover the insurance
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | January 23, 2023 5:24 AM
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Oh, sorry, R12...meant to say rolls, note roles. Do the math. Or if you are English, the maths.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | January 23, 2023 5:27 AM
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