CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

gregberne11 This is a really good movie. i'm surprised more people don't talk about it when they talk about hitchcock, it is kind of a forgotten hitchcock movie in a way. check it out if you're a fan of his other work because this one is really great.

Christopher Reid I enjoyed the concept of this movie. That someone confesses to a priest (Michael Logan played by Montgomery Clift) about a murder and then the priest feels compelled to honour his vows and say nothing to the police. It creates a lot of tension. You can see it begin to weigh down on the priest. Surely he is becoming conflicted about what the right thing to do is.Logan ends up becoming a main suspect through some unfortunate details. A couple of girls saw a priest out at night. He happened to have a meeting with the victim and didn't want to reveal what its purpose was. His reluctance to answer questions makes him more suspicious in the eyes of the police. We learn about an interesting back-story involving a love triangle which Anne Baxter tells to the police in order to save Logan. She is upset to find that her words are being twisted to supply a motivation for Logan committing the murder. She reveals personal things and it all backfires.This was a movie where everyone's motivations made sense to me. I understood their choices. Nobody is flat-out stupid. Perhaps they are stubborn or short-sighted but that's an accurate insight into human nature. The villain becomes less sympathetic over time and yet Logan is so righteously unwilling to compromise his beliefs. It does remind me a bit of how Darth Vader gets a cute redemption in Return of the Jedi but none of the other henchmen or innocent victims get any such attention. Perhaps Logan realises he made a mistake by the end, it's up for debate.In any case, I greatly enjoyed the acting and the story of I Confess. I liked most of the characters and empathised with their situation. The ending is suspenseful and satisfying. It raises some moral questions like what rights should police have to pry into personal lives in order to solve a case and whether priests should divulge confessions in certain situations. There is one shot with Jesus on the cross looming above Logan as he again refuses to give any useful information. It's not distractingly obvious but it's a powerful image. I am consistently impressed and affected by Hitchcock's films in new and original ways and I Confess is no exception.

bandw Most likely somebody has told you a secret on the condition that you promise to tell no-one. I think it is quite common that people have a hard time keeping such promises. But what if keeping the secret puts you in a difficult spot? That is the premise of this movie. Not only is Father Logan required to keep a secret in respect for the privacy of the confessional, but the secret he has to keep is one that would clear him of a murder charge. That kind of pushes the keeping a secret business to the limit.I think any Montgomery Clift performance is worth seeing, and this one is no exception. Clift is able to say a lot with facial expressions and Hitchcock gives him an opportunity to use that talent with many extreme close-ups. Clift's Logan can display a combative side at some points while evincing a disciplined, spiritual, rectitude at others.If you go into this expecting a Hitchcockian high-wire thriller, then you will most likely be disappointed. The script is more introspective than action packed.I don't associate Hitchcock with film noir, but I think that "I Confess" is a good example of that genre. The use of high contrast black and white lends a dark overtone to the proceedings, particularly in the use of shadows and dark cityscapes. I was impressed with the photography, perhaps the most artistic of any Hitchcock I have seen. The print on the DVD I watched was pristine, amazingly so for a movie that is over sixty years old.The original score by Dimitri Tiomkin is bombastic and intrusive--a big negative.It is interesting to compare this with the 2011 "The Confession" that has a similar initial premise but plays out in a much different way.

Prismark10 A man who is a German Refugee in Canada confesses to murder to a priest. The man also works as a handyman for that church so he and his wife are well known to the priest. The rules of the priesthood mean that the priest cannot divulge the confession to the police even though the priest becomes a suspect and stands trial.Montgomery Clift is in a dilemma which has meant this film has been regarded as a classic. However looked closely there are many problems with the film as the screenplay has to overreach to make the priest a suspect, the murderer is a man who the audience has little sympathy for and you do not buy that the priest would himself go to jail to save the snivelling rat.Hitchcock does his best with the thriller genre but the story line hampers him, especially with the flashback scenes with Clift and Anne Baxter whose past relationship returns to haunt them both.Karl Malden is effective as a dogged detective but as a good catholic himself you would have thought that he might have sensed there were other reasons why the priest was not forthcoming.