From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Alfred Hitchcock’s “I Confess”- A Film Review

DVD Review

I Confess, starring Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Warner Brothers, 1953

Apparently the late British thriller film director Alfred Hitchcock did not have a high regard for the capacities of the police to do more than cursory investigations of crimes, pick a suspect at random, a nearby suspect, frame him (or occasionally her), let the chips fall where they may and go out for coffee and crullers, oh, yah, after giving that suspect, that nearby suspect, the third degree down at the station house just for chuckles. At least that is the way it seemed to this reviewer after having recently reviewed Hitchcock’s 1956 B-film thriller The Wrong Guy, oops The Wrong Man, where a totally innocent citizen of New York City, a second-rate musician named Manny, was framed, signed, sealed and delivered, for a series of armed robberies around the neighborhood and only got off, barely, because the real wrong-doer, the real wrong gee, was found out up to his old tricks. That same sloppy police work is at play here, except this time the nefarious police work is done up in La Belle Province, up in Quebec City.

Here is the lay of the land. A post-World War II German refugee (maybe Nazi, maybe no, but his demeanor and actions said that was at least a possibility) who landed up in Quebec working as a handyman at a church rectory with his housekeeper wife can’t live another day seeing her youth fading away doing hard labor so he plans to rob a sleazy lawyer about town who had some off-hand dough laying around using a priest’s cassock as disguise. Things went awry, as they sometimes do with amateurs in over their heads, especially those eaten up with rage about wifely faded beauty, and the lawyer winds up dead, very dead. Said handyman in remorse, maybe, decided to confess his sin to one of the parish priests, Father Logan (played by Montgomery Clift), in the privacy of the confessional. That act created the drama of the film since it is well known that such confessions cannot be divulged to anybody, not even the law, the cops, you know the priest-penitent rule.

That is where the nifty police work comes in, comes in the in person of one pug-nosed pugnacious (is that combination possible?) anglo detective, played by Karl Malden, who while investigating the murder came up with the bright idea that a priest did the deed, end of story. Well, not quite, because he had to figure out which priest in 1950s Gallic old-style Roman Catholic priest-ridden Quebec with a church on every block did the deed. And so he grabs onto the nearest priest, Father Logan of course. And the good father is made to order for the frame because, as we find out by a series of flash backs, it turned out that his pre-priesthood old flame, his married, very married old flame, Ruth (played by fetching Anne Baxter) confessed to the cops (in order to give Logan an alibi) she was being blackmailed by the sleaze lawyer (and that she was still in love with her good-looking priest friend), she had sought the good father’s help, and so his actions on her behalf took on a sinister note. And don’t forget that old confession rule.

So beat daddy cop Karl had a slam-dunk and could join the other guys down at Chez somebody’s for coffee and crullers. Father Logan took the heat like a man, went on trial for murder, and just barely avoided stepping off the big step by a jury (all men) who seemingly figured he was fooling around with the good madame the night of the murder. Not guilty he might be legally but not innocent according to the town’s mores as his alleged unpriestly actions were over the top and in reaction they threatened him as he came out of the courthouse. The murderous handyman’s fading beauty housekeeper wife (who also knew of her man’s act but who would have pled the married exception against her husband in court I guess if it came to that) broke down and declared the good father’s innocence. The handyman, further unhinged, shoots her, runs away and then later dies in a shoot-out while still looking for the good father’s forgiveness as he dies in his arms. Here is the beauty of the tale though that lying handyman was the star witness against old Father Logan and so the cops took his word for everything right down the line, without a murmur. Yah, Alfred, your right, cops.