The Defector (1966)

THE DEFECTOR  (1966)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Raoul Levy
    Montgomery Clift, Hardy Krüger, Macha Méril,
    David Opatoshu, Hannes Messemer, Roddy McDowall 
In his last movie, Montgomery Clift plays an American scientist who's recruited/blackmailed by the CIA to go behind the Iron Curtain and get some information from a Soviet colleague. It's decent Cold War cloak-and-dagger stuff, not great, but better than its reputation and the collective opinion of Clift's biographers would suggest. Clift was a wreck at that point. He hadn't worked in four years, and took the project to prove he could still act, while being considered for the lead in "Reflections In a Golden Eye". He holds it together, pretty much, but he seems distracted, not quite there. The film was shot on location, sometimes in the snow, and Clift insisted on doing his own stunts, even when that meant going in and out of a freezing river. It took a toll. He died before the movie's release, and Brando replaced him in "Reflections In a Golden Eye".