Monty @ 100: Instant Stardom & Queer Masculinity in "Red River"
Friday, October 2, 2020 at 8:00PM by Nathaniel R
I watched myself in Red River and I knew I was going to be famous, so I decided I would get drunk anonymously one last time."
- Montgomery Clift to the novelist James Jones (From Here to Eternity)
Cliff is an arrogant little bastard."
- John Wayne to a Life Magazine reporter.
While The Search (1948) was the first chance for moviegoers to see the rising actor Montgomery Clift on the screen, it was actually the second movie the young actor shot. His trial run in Hollywood came shortly before his 26th birthday, as he ditched Broadway to head to the Arizona desert for a John Wayne western. The film was Howard Hawks' Red River. It's possible that Hollywood didn't know that the film would prove to be a sensation with audiences, but word quickly spread that Wayne's debut co-star would.
By most accounts John Wayne and Montgomery Clift didn't get along but sometimes that works for a picture rather than against it...