Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

estherand First, I feel the need to verbalize that the flashback sequence in this film that illustrates Anne Baxter's testimony is incredibly haunting and one of the most memorable little bits of cinema, in my biased eyes. At first sight, I was in love.In fact, much of the film has the same understated and tragic tone. It is not an outwardly suspenseful film, as many have noted. It relies on expressive lighting (that seems to borrow from European films of the time), solid performances by Baxter and Malden, and a romantic, emotional core. Clift as the center of the film can be a bit underwhelming at times, but his work is believable and never distracting.Just because this film deviates from what is stereo-typically Hitchcock does not mean it should continue to be overlooked. It was a bit of a flop at the time of its release, and had plenty of strife connected to both the director and lead, but to me, that hardly shows. Its an unusual, visceral gem of a film that deserves a second look.

James Hitchcock As others have pointed out, "I Confess" is probably one of Alfred Hitchcock's lesser-known films, certainly when compared to the likes of "Psycho", "North by North-West" or "Vertigo". And yet in terms of quality I would rank it alongside those films; it certainly does not deserve to be relegated to the ranks of "lesser Hitchcock" together with something like, say, "Stage Fright" or "Torn Curtain". Perhaps the reason is that it does not contain what have come to be thought of as typical Hitchcock touches; there is very little humour and no set-piece "suspense" sequences. There are no typical "Hitchcock stars"; I suspect that it might have become better-known had it starred, say, James Stewart and Ingrid Bergman, or Gregory Peck and Grace Kelly, rather than Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter, neither of whom made another film with Hitch. It has a "Hitchcock blonde" in the shape of Baxter, but her character is in many ways untypical of the director's female leads. One typically Hitchcock feature is its theme, that of a man wrongly accused of a crime, but there is an unusual twist. The hero is Father Michael Logan, a Catholic priest from Quebec. (Much of the filming was done on location in the city; in keeping with Hitchcock's fondness for landmark buildings the finale takes place in the famous Château Frontenac hotel). Father Logan finds himself coming under suspicion after a corrupt lawyer named Villette is found murdered. The link between them is that Villette was blackmailing Ruth, the wife of local politician Pierre Grandfort and an old girlfriend of Father Logan before he became a priest, and the police suspect that he killed Villette to protect his former lover. The twist is that Logan actually knows the identity of the killer. It was Otto Keller, a German immigrant and the husband of Logan's housekeeper Alma. (Is it coincidence that she has the same Christian name as Hitchcock's own wife?) The motive was robbery; it had nothing to do with Villette's blackmail of Ruth. Because Keller has formally confessed his guilt to Logan, however, the priest is bound by the "seal of the confessional" and cannot implicate Keller, even when he is himself arrested and charged with the crime, at that time a capital offence in Canada. The Hitchcock film with which "I Confess" has most in common is probably "The Wrong Man", which also showed how easily an innocent man could be suspected of a crime. Like that film it contains a court scene, something Hitchcock generally preferred to avoid. (It is said that he withdrew from directing "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" because he could see no way of making it except as a courtroom drama). There are also similarities with "Marnie", another film which relies more upon psychological drama than physical suspense. It is said that Hitchcock, who disliked "method" actors, did not enjoy working with Clift, and yet it is Clift's performance which is vital to the film's success. Logan is a man prepared to die rather than betray his religious beliefs and his priestly duties, something which in many people's eyes would make him a saint, and playing a character who is virtuous to the point of saintliness can often be a thankless task. With Clift, however, we are always aware that Logan is a flesh-and-blood human being, not a mere plaster saint. He combines well with O. E. Hasse as Logan's evil angel Keller, a man tormented by the fear that Logan will be unable to resist the temptation to betray him and who constantly goads the priest. Another good performance comes from Karl Malden as the investigating police officer Inspector Larrue, initially all too ready to believe Logan guilty on unsatisfactory evidence but belatedly converted to a belief in his innocence. As I said, Baxter is not a typical Hitchcock blonde. Ruth is a selfish and conniving woman quite unlike the innocent heroines played by Bergman, Kelly, Joan Fontaine and Eva Marie Saint. She remains obsessively in love with Logan even after he enters the priesthood. Some directors might have tried to win sympathy for her by making Pierre a bad husband, a bully or an adulterer or both, but in fact he is a decent man who loves his wife and his hurt by her failure to return that love. (Baxter was not Hitchcock's first choice for the role; he wanted the Swedish actress Anita Björk but Warner Bros vetoed her on the grounds that she was an unmarried mother). Hitchcock was himself a Catholic, and regarded this as his most "Catholic" film but felt that others might not understand it, saying "We Catholics know that a priest cannot disclose the secret of the confessional, but the Protestants, the atheists, and the agnostics all say, 'Ridiculous! No man would remain silent and sacrifice his life for such a thing!'" Well, I might be the director's namesake but am not his co-religionist, and yet even I had no difficulty in understanding how a man like Michael Logan might be prepared to sacrifice his life for his beliefs. The one weak point, I felt, was the handling of the trial scene, which concentrates too much on the prosecution evidence and not enough on the defence and then culminates in that unexpected "not guilty" verdict which allows much of the tension to dissipate. It would have been more effective, I felt, had the denouement come while Logan was still on trial or even after he had been convicted and was under sentence of death. With that exception, however, I would regard "I Confess" as one of its director's finest psychological dramas and a film that deserves to be better-known. 9/10

punishmentpark 'I Confess' is carefully construed. It begins straight away with Hitchcock walking through the top of the screen and the signs saying 'direction->', 'direction->', 'direction->', as if Hitchcock is saying: 'Follow me please, and - please again - don't lose me.' At first the emphasis lies with the oath of silence of a priest, but then, with a couple of strategic twists, the viewer is lead to a secret romance (only alive in the hearts of Ruth and Michael), wherein the clever police inspector Larrue begins to suffer from tunnel vision, because Killer, I mean Keller, should not be considered innocent for any policeman, or even a laymen (he finds the victim when visiting him by appointment, ánd he lives under the same roof as Michael, where the bloody piece of clothing is found). But no, he is left alone...I'm assuming Hitchcock let things play out this way on purpose, and thus did not just aim for religion to be considered. When the culminating love story does not turn out to exonerate the main suspect, and a rather dry trial follows. During the trial the evil side of Keller is clearly exposed to the viewer, but he does have his motives; he 'wanted to survive' and he 'did it for his dear wife'. But the next moment he shoots his 'dear wife' in the stomach, just to stay in the clear - and so he gives himself away, finally.Maybe it is an awful lot to process for the viewer, but I found it to be intriguing to see this plot develop. And Hitchcock's direction is a great pleasure to watch, as usual. Quebec, Canada offers a great backdrop for this handsome, clever and compelling film.A big 8 out of 10, and I'm already looking forward to watching it again.

AaronCapenBanner Alfred Hitchcock directed this drama that stars Montgomery Clift as Father Michael Logan, a catholic Priest in Quebec who finds himself caught up in a murder investigation when the church caretaker(named Otto), after murdering a man whose home he was robbing, flees to the church for sanctuary after confessing the crime to Logan, who tries to convince him to turn himself in to the police, though he refuses. His wife Alma works in the church as a housekeeper, and keeps watch over him. The inspector in charge of the investigation(played by Karl Malden) comes to suspect Father Logan, which puts him in a bind if Otto won't confess, since he can't break confidentiality, even to save his life... Good cast can't save misfired drama, that never comes to life with a compelling story, despite some potential. A shame.