Hitchcock Month - I Confess

I Confess (1953)

Starring Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, and Karl Malden

Directed by Alfred Hithcock
***This film is currently streaming on Netflix*** 

Perhaps the shortest review in this Hitchcock fest...

I Confess is the tale of Canadian Catholic priest Michael Logan (Montgomery Clift) who is framed for murder by a church caretaker.  In confessional, the caretaker admits to his crime, but Logan, bound by church laws and vows, is unable to reveal the very clues that would profess his innocence.


I Confess is similar to The Wrong Man in both style and story, but The Wrong Man (which Hitch filmed a few years later) fares a better thanks to the acting performance of Henry Fonda.  In I Confess, Montgomery Clift is a little flat, showing no emotion, and is simply boring to watch.  Also falling flat is Anne Baxter as a woman with whom the priest had a relationship prior to joining the clergy.  Her role is rather silly, hampered by romantic plot points, but by the film's end, her character actually began to grow on me a little bit.

The thing with I Confess is that the film itself is just average.  There's not a single thing in it that stands out to me -- the acting, the script, the direction, the music score, the cinematography -- are all just "oka" and not nearly at the level of the great Hitchcock films.  As I said above, there's a realism present in I Confess that Hitch isn't necessarily well known for and it works, but it's a little disappointing that there isn't something with just a tiny bit of oomph displayed on the screen.

The RyMickey Rating:  C