I Confess

One aspect of Hitchcock’s films that has always irked me is his over-reliance on back projection and matte paintings. It’s jarringly evident in the later films, such as ‘Topaz’ or ‘Torn Curtain’ where horribly artificial studio-bound sequences contrast harshly with second-unit location footage.

‘Shadow of a Doubt’ – one of my favourite Hitchcocks – was shot chiefly on location and benefits from it immeasurably. The small town atmosphere is one of the key elements that makes it such a great movie. Much of ‘The Trouble with Harry’ was filmed on location in Vermont and the colour and vibrancy that results establishes the tone of the film beautifully.

‘I Confess’ and ‘The Wrong Man’ both use location shooting to maximum effect. They were released just three years apart (1953 and 1956 respectively), both are variations on one of Hitchcock’s favourite themes – the innocent man wrongly accused – and both are free of the dark, absurdist humour present in even such cynical Hitchcocks as ‘Psycho’ and ‘Vertigo’. They are arguably the darkest films he ever made.

‘I Confess’ was shot in Quebec, Canada, and from the outset the city’s distinctive architecture becomes an integral part of the fabric of the film. The steep, narrow cobble-stoned alleyways through which the murderer flees during the opening sequence could be a metaphor for the tortured mind of Father Michael Logan (Montgomery Clift), our morally compromised hero.

Logan knows that shady lawyer Vilette (Ovila Legare) has been killed by – I would say ‘spoiler alert’ but since Hitch has the guilty party make the eponymous confession five minutes in, I’m not really giving anything away – German immigrant Otto Keller (O.E. Hasse), but can’t say anything since it was Hasse himself who told him … in the sanctity of the confessional.

Hard-nosed copper Inspector Larrue (Karl Malden) isn’t impressed with Logan’s evasiveness, particularly when it comes out that Vilette was blackmailing Ruth (Anne Baxter), the wife of a D.A. Pierre Grandfort (Roger Dann) over her relationship with Logan, with whom she was in love before the war and still has feelings for.

With Keller, a verger at Logan’s church, continually torturing him with his very presence, Logan’s behaviour grows increasingly erratic, convincing Larrue that Logan is the guilty party. ‘I Confess’ is – pardon the pun – a something of a curate’s egg: part psychological character study (Keller’s fear and guilt provide counterpoint to Logan’s inner turmoil), part detective thriller (Larrue locks horns with his superiors who are decidedly uneasy at him pointing the finger of suspicion at a man of the cloth), part courtroom drama (Logan ends up in the dock, barely able to lock eyes with Keller, who’s seated amongst the crowd), part melodrama (Ruth’s histrionic narration of her ‘past’ with Logan feels like it was spliced in from a Douglas Sirk production), and the whole thing pays off with an archetypal Hitchcock set-piece (a chase through the kitchens and ballroom of a plush hotel).

When ‘I Confess’ works, it works well: Montogomery Clift and Karl Malden give fine, understated performances; the internal struggle of Father Logan is realised effectively; Hasse gives a venal but strangely compelling account of Keller, trace elements of corroded humanity occasionally evident amidst his increasing desperation.

It’s the middle section that lets things down badly, however, the script handing over the film’s narrative to Anne Baxter (a last minute casting decision after the studio nixed Hitch’s first choice*), who runs the gamut of misty eyes, trembling lips and pained expressions. It’s a hammy performance made worse by the naturalism of Clift and Malden’s acting, and it over-emphasises a character who serves, at best, as a plot device.

Hitchcock expanded on the themes and concerns of ‘I Confess’ in ‘The Wrong Man’. I’m tempted to describe ‘The Wrong Man’ as the flipside to ‘I Confess’, but that wouldn’t be quite right. ‘The Wrong Man’, avoiding the pitfalls of melodrama that beset ‘I Confess’, is definitely the A-side.



*Anita Björk, a Swedish actress Hitchcock had admired in Alf Sjöberg’s adaptation of Stringberg’s ‘Miss Julie’. Studio bosses were concerned that Björk, as an unmarried mother, would attract the wrong kind of publicity and the role went to Baxter. A damn shame, on all levels.



Tomorrow: ‘The Wrong Man’ – Hitchcock’s scariest film?

The Cat O' Nine Tails

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 'The Cat O'Nine Tails' opens in similar fashion to 'The Bird with the Crystal Plumage': Rome by night, a street scene; a man on his way home is an accidental witness to ...

Actually, no; scratch that. It becomes a very different film quite early on. One of the chief pleasures of 'TCONT' is Argento's first-act manipulation of accepted giallo conventions. To begin with, our protagonist Franco Arno (Karl Malden) doesn't technically witness anything since he's blind. Secondly, what he stumbles on (a few words of overheard conversation) is indicative of blackmail, not murder. Thirdly, he's revealed, a few minutes later, as not even being the protagonist but a supporting character. Here's our hero of the day, another example of Argento's blandly interchangeable leading men: Carlo Giordano (James Franciscus), an investigative journalist hurrying to the scene of a break-in at the Terzi Institute, a renowned genetics research facility. En route, he bumps into Franco (quite literally); the two quickly join forces as blackmail and burglary leads to multiple murder and everyone at the institute seems to have a secret to hide.

There's institute head honcho Professor Terzi (Tino Carraro), whose interest in his adoptive daughter Anna (Catherine Spaak) is rather unwholesome; there's narcissistic German researcher Dr Braun (Horst Frank), leading a double life that leaves him open to personal as well as professional jealousies; there's Dr Calabresi (Carlo Aleghiero), who fatally discovers something about one of his colleagues ... fatally for him, that is; there's Calabresi's lover, Bianca Merusi (Rada Rassimov), who races to find the incriminating evidence before the killer can find her; there's Dr Casoni (Aldo Reggiani), whose work on the XYY project constitutes one discovery too many.

The XYY project, the Macguffin around which the narrative centres, explores the idea that criminal tendencies are genetically pre-programmed. Casoni enthuses that, once the research has been completed, a simple test at birth, followed by immediate incarceration of all carriers, will effectively stamp out crime and violence. It's a startling concept: a future in which the state whisks babies from womb to prison to guard against what they might do later in life. It's also a highly dubious bit of science, which is probably why the script doesn't explore it any further. Although, as with the later 'Deep Red', there's a brutal irony lurking at the end of the film once you think about it a bit.

It's curious that 'TCONT' remains so under-rated. Read the user comments on IMDB and the general concensus seems to be that it's lacking in Argento's trademark bravura visuals and camerawork ... but you could say that of 'TBWTCP'. In fact, Argento's operatic visual excesses didn't fully kick in until 'Deep Red'. True, there's nothing in 'TCONT' quite as striking as Sam Dalmas trapped between the two sets of glass doors at the start of 'TBWTCP', but there are still some great set-pieces: a murder at a railway station, a bunch of paparazzi distracted from the arrival of a pouting starlet as someone is pushed in front of an oncoming train (the face/front of locomotive impact is not so much homaged in Eli Roth's 'Hostel' as shamelessly plagiarised); a Hitchcockian bit of suspense involving a poisoned carton of milk (a sly reworking of a terrific sequence in 'Notorious'); a bit of business in a shadowy crypt that segues from blackly comic to just plain creepy; a roof-top confrontation/chase scene in which Franco proves himself more than capable despite his blindness.

There are also flaws, however: far too many scenes with the typically ineffectual cop, Superintendent Spini (Pier Paolo Capponi); a pointless romantic subplot between Carlo and Anna (Franciscus and Spaak pitch their performances at a narcoleptic level; there is absolutely no chemistry; their love scene is embarrassing); perfunctory and fairly ordinary death sences; way too many red-herrings (granted, a certain amount of misdirection is requisite in the giallo, but here there are too many instances when the actual plot is all but forgotten about); and a title that's as tenuous as the science is shaky. Discussing the various institute staff whose behaviour prompts suspicion, Franco and Carlo come up with nine names. "Like a cat o' nine tails," Carlo exclaims. "Yes, the old navy whip," Franco nods. "If we could just grasp one of them ..." Carlo muses.

And yet 'TCONT' is an intriguing and often entertaining film to watch. It also benefits from arguably the greatest acting performance in any Argento film: that of Karl Malden. I don't think I've ever seen a mainstream actor play a blind man so convincingly, so physically and with such dignity. Forget Al Pacino's inexplicably Oscar-rewarded turn in 'Scent of a Woman', Malden truly integrates with his character.