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What's it all about, Alfie? The master of suspense goes in an unusual direction with this murder mystery with a Catholic background. And foreground. Actually, it's a regular guidebook for proper priest deportment, and it's so complex that we wonder if Hitchcock himself had a full grip on it. Montgomery Clift is extremely good atop a top-rank cast that includes Anne Baxter and Karl Malden. Rated less exciting by audiences, this is really one of Hitch's best. I Confess Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 94 min. / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 17.95 Starring Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, Brian Aherne, Roger Dann, Dolly Haas, Charles Andre, O.E. Hasse. Cinematography Robert Burks Art Direction Edward S. Haworth Film Editor Rudi Fehr Original Music Dimitri Tiomkin Written by George Tabori, William Archibald from a play by Paul Anthelme Produced and Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

This is a tale of chance encounters.1) René Clair is in London, making The Ghost Goes West (1935). Something of a flaneur, he has strolled down to the East End, and his noctivagation leads him to a Limehouse pub which strikes him with an intense but mysterious feeling of déjà vu."Of course!" he suddenly thinks. "D.W. Griffith: Broken Blossoms!" The pub is the very image of Griffith's Hollywood recreation of Victorian London from his 1919 film.And there, at the bar, sits D.W. Griffith himself. Clair approaches this mirage and learns that Griffith is in London to direct a remake of Broken Blossoms at Twickenham Studios. Drink is taken.2) All this comes from screenwriter Rodney Ackland's bittersweet memoir of his work in British cinema, The Celluloid Mistress, co-written with Elspeth Grant. He further explains that his idolisation of Griffith prompted him to volunteer his services in any capacity as...