Day 44- Movie 40. I Confess (1953)

I thought it was time to watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Hitchcock is one of the all time greatest directors, and the list of his great movies is extensive. Unfortunately, I wouldn't include I Confess in that list. The movie is decent and certainly interesting and thought-provoking, but this is clearly not one of Hitchcock's best.

The movie is about a priest (Montgomery Clift) who hears the confession of one of his parishioners- the confession of murder. As he is a Roman Catholic priest, he is bound to not reveal what was confessed to him. This alone is pretty interesting, but Hitchcock always has a twist- the priest is soon accused of the murder himself. Now he is faced with a very difficult decision. Does he break his vow and reveal the truth of the murderer? Or, does he remain quiet, and face jail and possibly death? This makes up the central thrilling aspect of the film. What would you do?

Putting yourself in the priest's shoes, you are facing a very difficult decision- do you sacrifice your life to save your soul, or sacrifice your soul to save your life? The strongest part of the film revolves around this question. Unfortunately, Hitchcock doesn't linger long enough on this question. He's too preoccupied with the rest of the story to let us have time to reflect on it. I was disappointed in that.

I also thought Montgomery Clift was not very good in the lead role. In my research on this film, I saw many people claiming he was brilliant. I thought he was boring, wooden, and showed far too little emotion. I would think a man in his situation would show more emotion- fear, panic, worry, concern- something. He moves through the whole film with the same look on his face- revealing nothing about whatever inner torment is going on. That was a big miss.

While I loved the thought-provoking "What would you do?" question, a question alone doesn't make a good movie. This isn't one of Hitchcock's most well-known movies, because it simply isn't one of his best. I thought the movie was decent, so it gets a 6.5/10- but I wish it had been better.

Any Hitchcock fans out there? What is your all-time favorite Hitchcock movie?

By the way, if you haven't seen Rope, it is one of the most underrated Hitchcock movies of all time. I love that movie, but so many people haven't seen it. Check it out.