I Confess

I ordered some new DVDs, all Hitchcock. Finally watched I Confess for the first time. From 1953, this movie highlights the role of the priest over one of his parishoner's confessions...of a murder. The priest still debates the issues, inwardly, when they accuse him of the murder.

I liked it. I can see why most people have all but forgotten it from the rest of Hitch's canon. The suspense wasn't overly scary, not like a shower scene in Psycho, but the suspense holds as to when and if the priest will give it up to save his own skin. If he tells of the confession, he fails as a priest. If he doesn't, he could go to jail for a murder he didn't commit.

Quite fascinating. That's more of a cerebral suspense. You want the priest to win, but as a Catholic, I understand that if he tells of the confession he may lose even more. Classic Scylla and Charybdis here (digressing, that's where we get the phrase "rock and a hard place" from, from The Odyssey).

Also fascinating are some of the shots. Some beautifully framed film moments, either with Anne Baxter coming down the stairs or the priest walking along the street with all this burden under the shadow of a monument of Christ carrying his cross.

Well done stuff.