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
