I'm Confessin'

I just saw I Confess, a Hitchcock film that's not especially well-remembered though it has a cult (as many Hitchcock films do).  The central situation isn't bad--a priest receives the confession of a murderer, and later is tried for that murder.  His vow doesn't allow him to exonerate himself.

Montgomery Clift sleepwalks through the role.  Hitchcock loved movie stars, who brought their persona, and their glamor, to the screen.  Clift was a star, but he was a method actor, who didn't really fit the mechanical demands of the director.

Not that another actor would have made the film work. I think it was done in by the Production Code. Back then, no Hollywood film could mock religion.  So the priest has to make the right move every step of the way.  There's no question he won't break the confidence of the confessional.  But also, Clift's character is involved with Anne Baxter's character, providing a motive for the murder.  Except he's not allowed to do anything wrong in their relationship.  It happened before he found his calling, and even when he returns (before he's a priest) after the war and sees her, he doesn't know she's married.  (Not that they do anything.)

The other problem is under the Code the good must be rewarded and the bad punished, so the priest ultimately gets off while the bad guy (and even his wife, who helped him but ultimately turns around) must die in the end.

I wasn't surprised to discover in the original play, the priest is executed.  Furthermore, he has a lover and an illegitmate child.

By the way, I doubt this situation has ever come up, but if it did, somehow I think the Church would allow the priest to at least explain that someone confessed the murder to him.