The Deadliest Sin

...than a priest break the seal of confession.

Sydney Chaplin stars with Audrey Dalton and Peter Hammond in "The Deadliest Sin" from 1955.

Chaplin plays Mike Nelson, who has been living in America and returns to his home in England after some time. No one has been exactly sure what he's been doing. We find out soon enough, however, that he's been up to no good.

First, there's the false bottom of his suitcase filled with thousands of dollars. Then he meets a threatening American at the post office, whom he agrees to meet that evening.

The money is from a robbery, and Mike's partner wants his cut. The two struggle, and the partner begins strangling Mike. Mike's buddy Alan has come there to meet him, and Mike keeps screaming for him to get the gun. Finally, Alan shoots the man and kills him.

Mike tells him they cannot go to the police, and they drive off. Alan is devastated. He is very religious and can't believe he took a life. He goes to confession; while there, he is murdered.

The police are aware that the priest must know something, but they can't get anything out of him. It's up to them to find another way to solve the two murders, which they believe are connected.

Pretty good noir with Sydney Chaplin playing a man with not one redeeming quality, a real user who doesn't care about anyone. Audrey Dalton plays his sister, a lovely Jean Simmons type, who suspects Mike.

Absorbing.

The English director Ken Hughes isn't the most known director in the world, though I seem to have watched three of his movies: "Casino Royale" (he was one of the five directors), "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "Terror Eyes" (a.k.a. "Night School", an acceptable American take on the giallo phenomenon). Not that I knew this when I bought my copy of "Confession", which I found in the Extreme Sales section of my local megastore. The movie looked okay enough to spend € 5 on (especially since it used to cost 30), so I bought "Confession". Also the names of Ken Hughes and Audrey Dalton vaguely rang a few bells. Research post-purchase informed me Dalton also starred in "The Monster That Challenged The World" and William Castle's "Mr. Sardonicus". There have been worse references.

"Confession" sounds a bit like Hitchcock's "I Confess" (released two years earlier), in that both movies feature a murder confessed in church and a priest who's bound by catholic law not to reveal what had been confessed. Even more striking is that both movies have been based on plays.

It would be wrong though to see "Confession" as only a copycat of the Hitchcock movie: only the theme is vaguely similar and the plot develops in different directions. For my money, "Confession" is the better film of the two, an incredibly underrated film which isn't easy to obtain (in 1994 Warner Bros released it on video in the UK, but that's the only version I've seen of the film).

The movie starts with a man confessing he's murdered a man. Why he confesses and why just that scene has been used to start the film will only be revealed half an hour later. After the credits we start with a flashback, where we watch how Louise welcomes her brother Mike who returned from a long stay in the US. Mike is portrayed by Sydney Chaplin who had an interesting career which kicked off with a Chaplin movie in 1952 ("Limelight") but ended with trashy horror like "Psycho Sisters" (1974) and "Satan's Cheerleaders" (1977). Why Mike has returned to England isn't quite clear, but he's always been someone who doesn't like to stay in one place for long. Though this time there might be another reason: Mike gets a phone call from somebody who demands his money. It's not long before somebody dies.

"Confession" doesn't work as a whodunit because we know who the murderer is. More interesting here is how all this affects the relationship between Mike and his family members. Equally interesting is the woman Mike meets in a bar (and how rude he is to her), but it's not completely clear to me what the writers tried to establish with these scenes. All in all this is a good movie and it's a shame the movie didn't get a better distribution.

This is a 'lost' film which really deserves to be better known. It features excellent performances by Sidney Chaplin, Audrey Dalton, and Peter Hammond in the lead roles. Sidney Chaplin was a very good actor who suffered from the resentment of others at his being the son of Charlie Chaplin, which hurt his career. Being the son of a famous father can occasionally work for you (Michael Douglas, Beau Bridges), but usually works against you. I only met him and chatted to him once, but it was immediately obvious that he was a warm and pleasant fellow. His acting talent seems to me obvious, but it was constantly called into question by carpers and grumblers. He has the lead role in this film, and delivers with authority and skill. The film is set in an ambiguous location: in the script they call the town Teignmouth, which is in Devon, but they are reading a local paper called the 'Surrey Comet', which is 200 miles away. Never mind. It is a cozy little town, and the house is beside a village green, and everything should be idyllic, but it isn't. That's because Sidney comes back after years away in America where an American accent 'kind of brushes off on you'. And then the trouble begins. And what trouble that is. Hence the tension, which gets worse every minute. Audrey Dalton as his sister really is so charming and sweet and genuine, one of those English roses they don't grow any more. The film was directed by Ken Hughes, and was perfectly suited to his abilities. I knew Ken well later on, and although he had a big commercial success as director of 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang', that was an accident, as he was not really a big picture director, he was meant for small and tight stories like 'Confession'. Ken had no head for facts. He was proudest of all at having directed 'Cromwell'. I never had the heart to tell dear Ken that it was all historically inaccurate, and I gave him old engravings of Roundheads to cheer him up. His pride and joy was the gigantic painting by Delvaux that dominated his living room in Hampstead. Ken was no highbrow, but he loved 'higher things'; he was an innocent abroad who never really grew up, and would give a pal the shirt off his back. This film is one of his finest achievements and I am pleased to be able to say so. It should get back into circulation, but then so should real money and silver dollars. If you can find it, don't hesitate.

Charlie Chaplin's son Sydney Chaplin gets first-billed in a British Film Noir titled CONFESSION aka THE DEADLIEST SIN; the melodramatic alternate title references a priest who overhears the wrong confession from a confessor killed right after uttering what he's done, sort of...

And it's all the fault of Chaplin as prodigal son Mike Nelson, back home from America (with no British accent) with his crippled father and gorgeous sister Audrey Dalton...

She thinks big brother's as clean as the driven snow, providing what others have noticed is similar to Alfred Hitchcock's "cute niece loves her charmingly vicious uncle" SHADOW OF A DOUBT as well as I CONFESS with a targeted priest, leaving Chaplin little to do but look ominous and secretive, especially after sister loses trust since her boyfriend (and both their childhood friend) is the one killed after committing a retaliation-style murder of square-jawed Patrick Allen, who was blackmailing the suitcase-full-of-cash Chaplin in a thriller where the important side roles die off too quick to matter...

And, sadly, what began as a chance for Sydney Chaplin to shine darkly (looking more like he'd be Victor Mature's brother than Charlie Chaplin's son), the picture winds up in the hands of cop John Bentley, who... as the tail wags the dog... would have been better left in the background.

An early sign that Ken Hughes was a director to watch was this ruthless thriller with a religious angle plainly inspired by Hitchcock's 'I Confess' photographed with his customary excellence by Phil Grindrod.