Montgomery Clift would join Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood Babylon five years after appearing together in THE MISFITS
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
March 11-25
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
In “The Right Profile,” the Clash’s Joe Strummer famously declared, “That’s Montgomery Clift, honey!” in a song that referenced the Hollywood star’s troubled career and fatal struggle with pills and the bottle. Born in Nebraska in 1920, Clift quickly rose to fame in his first few films in the late 1940s, which included Academy Award nominations for his roles in THE SEARCH and A PLACE IN THE SUN. But his career took a tragic turn when he suffered severe facial disfigurements in a car accident while filming RAINTREE COUNTRY in 1956. In 1961, Clift starred in THE MISFITS, the John Huston film that featured the final screen appearances of both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable; Clift made only three more movies before dying a broken man in his New York City bedroom in 1966, at the age of forty-five, guaranteeing himself a place in Hollywood Babylon alongside such other denizens as Monroe and James Dean. BAM is celebrating what would have been Clift’s ninetieth year with a two-week festival of eleven of his films, beginning March 11 with William Wyler’s THE HEIRESS and continuing through THE MISFITS on March 25. On March 14, Clift biographer Patricia Bosworth will introduce FROM HERE TO ETERNITY; the series also includes screenings of A PLACE IN THE SUN, THE HEIRESS, I CONFESS, RED RIVER, FREUD, and other Clift classics.