I Confess

I'm fascinated by musical acts with long careers and how they can be divided up into eras. Sometimes, it's obvious, like AC/DC or Black Sabbath changing lead singers. Sometimes, it comes with the band evolving their sound, like The Beatles before and after Rubber Soul. Perhaps one of the most interesting to me is Pink Floyd. Depending on how you want to look at it, it could be said they have five eras -- the Syd Barrett era (inception-1967), post-Barrett finding their sound (1968-1972), the last Roger Waters album (1983), the post-Waters era (1987-1994), and then that era in the middle. 1973-1979. The era where Pink Floyd became PINK FLOYD. The funny thing about that era, though, is that while it was four albums of non-stop excellence, one album sticks out: Animals. It doesn't have the more concise writing of Dark Side Of The Moon, the sweeping, progressive melancholy of Wish You Were Here, or the cohesive narrative of The Wall. Its sound is unusual, its subject matter distinctly more down-to-earth and pointed, and its mood more angry. It's still good (I'd say excellent), but of that era that made Floyd legends, it is the odd duck. It's almost never mentioned by any Floyd fan as the favorite of the four. I mention this because because I Confess is in a similar position. Directly prior to this, Alfred Hitchcock directed Strangers On A Train, a movie in his upper echelon. Directly after this came Dial M For Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch A Thief. All of those are considered classics in his filmography. Sandwiched in the middle of all this is I Confess. Why is that? Well, frankly, because the movies around it are so excellent and they cast a shadow I Confess just can't escape. Not that this would be held in higher regard if it were released three years earlier, but being where it is, it highlights the movie's insufficiencies all the more. I Confess is about a priest who is told by the caretaker of his parish that he has killed a man. This man knows the priest and knows a secret about him. Bound by the sanctity of the confessional, the priest cannot tell the police, but the other secret gets out and implicates the priest in the murder. On paper, it's a solid set-up for a movie. In execution, it doesn't turn out like one would hope. Because we know the truth, we're left watching the police either chase their tails or go after the wrong man. Because Father Logan is bound by his faith, he has to keep quiet, which means he spends a lot of time saying "I can't say anything" and looking pensive. The movie never attempts to delve into a potential crisis of conscience versus faith, unless Montgomery Clift staring off into the middle distance counts. He mostly stands around as events happen to him; he gets hounded by the police, stalked by the killer, and accidentally hung out to dry by an old friend who is married and in love with him. A protagonist can certainly be a victim of circumstance, but Father Logan gets knocked around more than a boxer's punching bag, and he does little to nothing about it. Hitchcock does his best to paint a picture of intrigue and suspense, with the murdered man blackmailing the woman that loves Logan over it, but it never reaches above a simmer. I Confess isn't a failure so much as just awkward and off-balance. There is some fine acting -- Anne Baxter as Ruth, the lady who loves Logan, and Karl Malden as the dogged lead detective on the case -- and the direction is solid, especially with all the on-location shots in and around Quebec City. There's nothing even outright bad about the movie. It's just average, and when viewed in the context of the period in which it came out, average feels less than that.