I CONFESS

"I Confess"is one of Hitchcock's least known films. The plot is pure melodrama but the treatment is superb. Montgomery Clift is a Catholic priest suspected of a murder that has been committed by a man who has confessed to him that he is the killer but Clift, under the rules of the confessional, can't reveal the killer's name and defend himself when he is tried for the murder. The waters are muddied further by the fact the victim was blackmailing Clift and the woman, (Anne Baxter), who is in love with him and further still by the fact that he, Clift, knows the killer personally. Since we, too, know who the killer is from the outset what suspense there is comes from seeing how the murderer might give himself away, but what interests Hitchcock isn't so much the mechanics of the thriller plot as the moral maze Clift's priest finds himself in. A brilliant use of close-ups and some superb location work, (it was filmed in and around Quebec), go a long way to detract from the overall theatricality, (it was based on a play), and the climax is impeccably handled.