Cinema: Double Defect

The Defector is Montgomery Cliffs last film. Based on The Spy, a thriller by Paul Thomas, the picture describes a harrowing week in the life of a prominent U.S. physicist (Montgomery Clift) who intends to make an innocent tour of museums in East Germany, but is persuaded at the last minute to combine personal pleasure with CIA business. Once across the border, the scientist swiftly discovers that the game of espionage can be played with mirrors. Sent to make contact with a Communist physicist who wants to defect, the hero instead makes contact with a Communist physicist (Hardy Kruger) who wants him to defect.

The notion is amusing but clumsily worked out. Aside from some radiant color photography by Raoul Coutard (Jules and Jim, Breathless), Clift is the only interesting thing in this sluggish and somewhat muddled movie. But the interest in Clift, who died of a heart attack soon after this picture was completed, will be mostly morbid. Suffice it to say that his acting, though competent, is less striking than his appearance. He looks like a man who knows he is in bad health—and in a bad picture. It provides an undistinguished conclusion to a distinguished career.