I Confess (1951)

Hitchcock does indeed occupy that well traveled real estate of "innocent man framed" property so associated with his incredible body of work, with the lesser known, not as well received "I Confess", a star vehicle for Montgomery Clift, about a priest beholden to a murderer's confessional. As Father Michael Logan, Clift is sad-eyed and tortured, soft-voiced and suffering, traits often very present in his own gallery of character work. This film might be a bit laborious for some as Anne Baxter, as Madame Grandfort, is interrogated by Karl Malden's Inspector Larrue and uncomfortably positioned by Crown Prosecutor, Robertson (Brian Aherne), to reveal her past with Logan, mostly her love for him before he went to war, their day together after his return and night, the encounter with a blackmailer hoping to get a tax relief from her husband in exchange for keeping her time with Logan (innocent, without adultery) secret, and the night of the murder seeking Logan's guidance in what to do about it...it goes on quite a bit in the old fashioned tradition of Hollywood melodrama. I thought O.E. Hasse as the killer, Weller, and Dolly Haas, as the wife, Alma, are especially good; Hasse exploiting the confessional code with this distinctive photographic face and Haas rattled and guilt-stricken by her husband's blatant advantageous behavior when Logan is arrested and on trial for the murder he committed. Even wearing a cassock to kill a lawyer set to blackmail Baxter, leaving it among Clift's garments, and committing perjury on stand, saying he saw him returning at a time he actually didn't. When Hasse confessed, he seemed truly burdened and grievous of his actions, but knowing he couldn't be implicated by Clift, he instead holds his silence and goes about to further protect himself. Working on the Catholic cathedral as a craftsman, Hasse even has the gall to move about reminding Clift of the confessional and how he can't be surrendered to police. Malden and his detectives go about investigating who was the supposed priest two girls saw the night of the murder, eventually settling on Clift, who never wavers in protecting the confession. I've seen lots of Law & Order episodes dealing with the sanctity of the confession and how killers use it to shield themselves. Hitchcock sure has a way of these stark, tilted, upward camera angles of Quebec City cathedrals and the city itself, often shot as lonely and even melancholic in the wee hours or later in night. Clift and the city often seem to be speaking the same language, particularly in how Hitchcock frames them. I read Clift's Method approach worked against Hitchcock's style of direction, but for me the actor holds the screen just the same and aesthetically the film is easy on the eyes. And Hitchcock's camera still knows how to investigate, spy, focus intensely, hold fixed on someone or something important. But this film's story didn't really absorb me or cast its spell on me as many, many others helmed by the Master do. Clift, I'm glad, at least did star in a Hitchcock film, so that is special, even if this isn't higher tier or upper echelon. The ending, where Clift is bombarded by a mob, with Haas trying to tell police of Clift's innocence, and Hasse desperately using a gun before fleeing into Château Frontenac as police and Clift try to find him is a bit anti-climatic and predictable. The trial and verdict surprisingly not that riveting. 3/5

*I felt this sort of Catholic milieu present throughout the film, a sort of depressing loss, maybe due to Clift's own personal problems of the time and his resistance towards cast and crew, isolated and apart. That, to me, could be what stood out and strangely worked to the film's actual benefit considering the character of Father Logan.