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Rating:  -
Very pleased with both the prices and the timeliness in getting the product. Have ordered before and will do so again.
Rating:  -
It's ironic in a sense that Hitchcock's first color film ROPE was basically an elaborately filmed stage play and limited largely to a single (patently artificial) set. That he followed that 1948 film with black & white classics like STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and I CONFESS suggested that he was not quite ready to make the leap into fully "opened up" technicolor extravaganzas--and considering the "look" of these remarkable films, we can only be grateful and glad that that was the case.
There is probably no better "looking" Hitchcock film than I CONFESS. It can--and has--serve as a study of "noirish" cinematography unto itself. Robert Burks' moody images of Quebec City are as beautiful as they are sinister. Critics have often remarked on the ingeniousness of using Quebec, the most Old World looking city in the New, as the film's setting. There's a certain irony about that choice too. Quebec can be a lovely, colorful and "color-filled" city, and was likely even more so in the early '50s when this film was shot. To see it rendered in brooding, Expressionistic black and white is, in a very real sense, quite jarring.
All this atmosphere helps to make up for some of the film's structural and dramatic flaws. It is Hitchcock at his talkiest. So much of the film's plotting is revealed in narrated flashback that the film begins to lose momentum quite early on. Admittely, it would be difficult to come up with a better expository plot device than the Anne Baxter character's lengthy police deposition. I certainly don't have a better idea. Nonetheless it's a fairly leaden device that goes on way too long and falls all too flat. Luckily for the viewer, the plot twists further and her character's good intentions go horribly wrong when her attempts to provide our protagonist with an alibi are actually used against him.
The plotline is fairly well known among Hitchcock buffs. A priest (Montgomery Clift), bound by the vow of confidentiality of the confessional, cannot divulge the identity of a murderer, even when he himself (the priest) is accused and tried for the crime. I'm told by friends knowledgeable in church doctrine that this is certainly the case--which certainly opens up all kinds of delicious dramatic possibilities. And Hitchcock exploits them up to a point. There are no scenes, however, that have the priest even attempting to counsel the actual murderer that he continues to be in a grievous state of sin by not coming forward and admitting his guilt, even when another man (the priest himself) is charged with the crime.
Throw in a subplot suggestive of an illicit love (of course, it's not really that--this is the '50s after all), and blackmail and you've got all the ingredients for a corker of a story. Well, what we get is a pretty good story, but one that was obviously sanitized and dramatically compromised in unfortunate ways. Commentary by Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Schickel and others included in the DVD version's special features indicate all the compromises Hitchcock had to make--to censors seen and unseen (i.e. within and outside of the studio)--in order to get this film made. From what they relate, it's easy to imagine an even more dramatic and satisfying film that the one we have.
It's not at all bad, but it's not truly great.
Rating:  -
DVD arrived but had no audio. I tried it on 2 machines and had similar results. No new arrival of DVD has happened. This was a bad happening.
Rating:  -
An Alfred Hitchcock film with very little action or suspense, this moral issue/drama still maintains interest for the most part. Montgomery Clift is intriguing as "Father William Logan," a Catholic priest from Quebec who hears a murder confession, is charged with the crime himself, and never wavers from his vow to keep confessions private.
The question Hitchcock apparently poses with this is is, "Is that still morally right when it means you leave a killer out on the loose?"
Complicating the matter is an old girlfriend, played by Anne Baxter, who still loves the priest. However, once again the cleric remains true to his vows and doesn't get involved with her. Karl Malden, meanwhile, plays a gung-ho cop out to solve the crime.
This movie could use a little more suspense and action, plus a bit of the old Hitchcock humor, but still is more than passable.
Rating: -
The performances of the primary actors are excellent, including that of Karl Malden as a tenacious detect, Montgomery Clift as the unusually innocent priest, and especially that of Anne Baxter as the woman who stays in love with a man after he has become a priest.
The direction by Alfred Hitchcock was diabolically good. You might even say, blasphemously exquisite. Let me explain.
On the surface, this film seems to be about how firm a priest could be in his faith. Because of his priestly vows, Father Logan refuses to implicate a killer, merely because the killer has confessed to him. The killer has the sanctuary of the priest's vows.
I have no doubt that many viewers of this film, especially the faithful, would walk away from the cinema in admiration of Father Logan's adherence to his vows.
However, upon closer inspection, I found that this film clearly demonstrated the true `value' of a vow. Vows, in my opinion, are short sighted, arbitrary promises that fail to consider anything but the closest possibilities. If a vow is taken for just reasons, what happens when the vow clashes with moral justice? Is one to be unjust, merely to satisfy an arbitrary vow? Of course not. Well, not in a reasonable world.
In the film, Father Logan protects the killer and even implicates himself just to be true to his vows. Our own hearts tell us that this is wrong. A good man should not be paying for someone else's crime and should not be protecting a criminal.
The intention of the vow that Father Michael Logan took was not so that killers could confess their crimes to him and then go free. Is there anyone who thinks otherwise? Father Logan should go to his superiors or to the police and explain that he could not be guilty of this crime, because he knows who the real killer is. He should see that justice is done, vow or no vow. Justice is more important than the vow.
Father Logan's crime in this film was in allowing a killer to kill again. The blood of the second murder is on Father Logan's hands. A rational society would prosecute Logan for this odious crime instead of admiring him for keeping a stupid vow.
Isn't it obvious that if a vow or a God or a rule or a law requires one to do something unjust, then the vow, God, rule or law is itself unjust?
So Hitchcock is really delivering an anti-religious theme under the guise of admiration for the faithful. Very clever Mr. Hitchcock.
Highly recommended.
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