I Confess (film) narrative location Canada
I Confess is a 1953 American film noir directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Montgomery Clift as Father Michael William Logan, a Catholic priest, Anne Baxter as Ruth Grandfort, and Karl Malden as Inspector Larrue.
The film is based on a 1902 French play by Paul Anthelme titled Nos deux consciences (Our Two Consciences), which Hitchcock saw in the 1930s. The screenplay was written by George Tabori.Filming took place largely on location in Quebec City with numerous shots of the city landscape and interiors of its churches, especially St. Zéphirin's and other emblematic buildings, such as the Château Frontenac.Plot
Father Logan is a devout Catholic priest in Ste. Marie's Church in Quebec City. He employs German immigrant married couple Otto and Alma Keller as caretaker and housekeeper, respectively. Otto Keller also works part-time as a gardener for a shady lawyer, Villette.
The film begins late one evening as a man wearing a cassock walks away from Villette's home with the lawyer dead on the floor inside. Shortly afterward, in the church confessional, Otto confesses to Logan that he accidentally killed Villette while trying to rob him. Otto tells his wife about his deed and assures her that the priest will not say anything because he is required to keep anything revealed during confession inviolate.
The next morning, Otto goes to Villette's house at his regularly scheduled gardening time and reports the death to the police. Logan also goes to the crime scene after hearing Alma mention that her husband is there and finds the police there. Logan is interviewed by Inspector Larrue, who witnesses Logan talking to a woman after he leaves.
At the police station, two young girls tell Larrue they saw a priest leaving Villette's house. This prompts Larrue to call Logan in for more questioning, but Logan refuses to provide any information about the murder. Prematurely suspecting Logan, Larrue orders a detective to follow Logan and contacts Crown Prosecutor Robertson, who is attending a party hosted by Ruth Grandfort, the woman Logan talked to outside of Villette's house, and her husband Pierre, a member of the Quebec legislature. Ruth overhears Robertson discussing Logan, and Larrue's detective discovers her identity by following her home the next day after she meets with Logan to warn him that he is a suspect.
Suspecting everyone Logan speaks to as a suspect, Larrue calls Ruth and Logan in for questioning, and Ruth blurts out the truth, narrating a series of flashbacks: she and Logan fell in love when they were childhood friends, but he went to fight in World War II with the Regina Rifle Regiment and eventually stopped writing to her. 
She eventually married Pierre, for whom she had been working as secretary. The day after Logan returned from the war, he and Ruth spent the day on a nearby island. A storm forced them to shelter for the night in a gazebo, and Villette found them there in the morning, recognizing Ruth. The next time Ruth saw Logan was several years later when he was ordained as a priest.
Villette had recently asked Ruth to persuade her husband to help him escape a tax scandal, with the condition that if she refused, he would publicize the night she spent with Logan. She met with Logan on the night of the murder, and Logan agreed to intercede with Villette.