I Confess (1953)

(In French, On Cable TV, March 2019) In some ways, it makes sense that I wouldn’t readily know about Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess: After all, it’s definitely in the second tier of his filmography (perhaps even third tier once you exclude his early British films), and it only seldom plays on TV considering the much better choices available in his filmography. On the other hand, come on: A 1950s film (Hitchcock’s best decade) entirely taking place in Québec City? I’d be a poor French-Canadian if I didn’t see the film as soon as it popped up on my radar. So it is that I ended up catching a broadcast on (where else?) a French-Canadian classic movie channel. Truth be told, there’s a reason why this isn’t considered top-tier Hitchcock: It’s a return to the straightforward thrillers that he did in the 1930s rather than the more sophisticated fare that he was accomplishing in the 1950s: Black-and-white cinematography, little discernible humour, somewhat contrived situations without even a layer of plausibility. As far as I can tell, I Confess is set in Québec City because pre-révolution tranquille Québec City was the strongest North American bastion of Catholicism and he wanted a thriller built around the Catholic seal of confession. While the film does have some very nice black-and-white cinematography of 1950s Québec City, it really does not capture anything specific about the Québec City that I know, nor any of the city’s distinctive aspects. While I can’t be sure due to the French-language dub, there doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement of language issues—Québec City has a solid history of an English presence, but that’s not a factor here. The plot isn’t particularly believable either (I would expect a dutiful priest to discuss matters of ethics and theology with superiors, for instance) and there’s a big chunk of on-the-nose exposition in the middle of the movie. None of this adds up to anything more than a curio. I Confess is still worth a look if you want to know what Québec City looked like in the early 1950s, but I suspect that it won’t be anyone favourite Hitchcock film—even among French-Canadians.