I Confess (film)

I Confess (film)

Infobox_Film
name = I Confess



imagesize = 240px
caption = From the "I Confess" film trailer
director = Alfred Hitchcock
writer = Play:
Paul Anthelme
Screenplay:
George Tabori
William Archibald
starring = Montgomery Clift
Anne Baxter
Karl Malden
Brian Aherne
Roger Dann
Dolly Haas
producer = Uncredited:
Alfred Hitchcock
music = Dimitri Tiomkin
cinematography = Robert Burks
editing = Rudi Fehr
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = flagicon|USA March 22, 1953
runtime = 95 min.
language = English

"I Confess" is a 1953 crime film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It stars Montgomery Clift as Fr. Michael William Logan, a Catholic priest, Anne Baxter as Ruth Grandfort, and Karl Malden as Inspector Larrue.

The film is based on a 1902 French play by Paul Anthelme called "Nos Deux Consciences", a play Hitchcock saw in the 1930s. The screenplay was written by George Tabori.

The movie was largely filmed on location in Quebec City, Canada, with numerous shots of the city landscape and interiors of its churches.

Plot

Father Michael Logan (Montgomery Clift) is a very devout Catholic priest in a church in Quebec City. Father Logan employes a caretaker, Otto Keller (O. E. Hasse) and a housekeeper, Otto's wife Alma (Dolly Haas); they take care of the church and the rectory. The caretaker Otto Kellar also works part-time as a gardener for a few householders in Quebec City. Otto and his wife are German immigrants who now have very little money, although in their homeland they were more affluent.

Very late one evening Keller asks if Father Logan will hear his confession. In the confessional, Keller tells Father Logan that he went to try to steal money from a person he gardens for, a rich man called Villette, and in the process he killed him. Because of the binding nature of the secrecy of the confessional, Father Logan cannot tell the police anything he now knows about this crime.

At the time of the murder, two young girls saw someone leaving the house of the murdered man wearing a cassock, the garment of a priest. As it turns out this was just a disguise, but suspicion falls upon Father Logan himself, who can provide no alibi for the time of the murder, cannot talk about the confession he heard, and cannot name the true murderer.

One might imagine that a priest would have no possible motive for this killing, but it gradually becomes apparent that Logan, in his early life before he became a priest, had a girlfriend. This girl, Ruth (Anne Baxter), has always loved him and still does, even though she is now married to someone else. We see in flashbacks that Logan stopped writing to Ruth not long after he went off to war. He has not seen her since he spent one day with her four years ago, the day he came back from World War II as a decorated soldier.

On that day, Ruth and Logan ended up stranded on an island during a storm, and were forced to shelter for the night in a gazebo. It is not clear to the audience whether there was any intimate contact between them during the night, but it seems to be implied that the whole thing was innocent. In either case, Ruth had failed to tell Logan that she is married.

Ruth and Logan are observed as they leave the gazebo together in the morning, and ever since then, Ruth has been blackmailed by the man who saw them. Ruth is married to a prominent politician, and both she and her husband's lives would be ruined if the story was made public.

The blackmailer, a lawyer, is Villette, the man who is killed by Otto Keller four years later. The fact that Villette is now dead is a great relief to Ruth, and she feels that telling the police her full story will help Father Logan. It does not help at all. In fact the police assume that Father Logan killed the blackmailer Villette in order to protect Ruth and himself. The police imagine there is an on-going scandalous relationship between the two of them. The situation is made worse by Otto Keller, who lies extensively to the police in order to try to ensure that Father Logan is convicted of the crime of murder, because that way Otto feels that he himself will be safe from suspicion.

We see highlights from Father Logan's trial. His kind and rigorously devout nature means that he comes very close to being found guilty and executed for a crime he did not commit, a sort of martyrdom. At the end of the trial, Father Logan is just barely found "not guilty", but his reputation as a priest is ruined, and the people of Quebec City, who are gathered on the courthouse steps, revile him. Otto's wife cannot bear to see this, and starts to shout that it was her husband that killed the man. Otto is also there, and he pulls out his gun and shoots his wife, to silence her. The police start to chase Otto, realizing that he is indeed the killer.

Otto is cornered by the police in a room that somewhat resembles a small theater within the grand hotel Château Frontenac. Otto tries to shoot Father Logan, who has bravely attempted to approach him and reason with him. Instead, Otto himself is fatally wounded by a police sharpshooter. In extremis Otto calls out to Father Logan to help him, to forgive him. Father Logan absolves him.

Subtle visual references to Christ, the cross, and the crucifix, occur frequently throughout the movie. The soundtrack uses the melody from the Gregorian Chant Dies Irae throughout.

"Alfred Hitchcock's cameo" is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In "I Confess" he can be seen (right after the credits) walking along the sidewalk at the top of a steep stairway.

Reaction

The film is considered a favorite among French New Wave film makers, according to filmmaker/historian Peter Bogdanovich.

The film was banned in Ireland because it showed a priest having a relationship with a woman (even though, in the movie, the relationship takes place before the character becomes a priest).

Featured cast

ee also

"Le Confessional", a 1994 film which dramatizes the filming of "I Confess" as the backdrop for a thematically-related story.

References

"I Confess" DVD documentary

External links

*imdb title|id=0045897|title=I Confess
* [http://www.eyegate.com/cine/I_Confess/ "I Confess" Eyegate Gallery]


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