page_title: I Confess (film)
section_title: Plot
hierarchical_section_title: I Confess (film) / Plot
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Montgomery Clift from the trailer for the film I Confess.
context_page_description: I Confess is a 1953 American film noir directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Montgomery Clift as Fr. 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, 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 and other emblematic buildings, such as the Château Frontenac.
context_section_description: Father Logan (Montgomery Clift) is a devout Catholic priest in Ste. Marie's Church in Quebec City. He employs German immigrants Otto Keller (O.E. Hasse) and his wife Alma (Dolly Haas) as caretaker and housekeeper. Keller also works part-time as a gardener for a shady lawyer called Vilette (Ovila Légaré).
  The film begins late one evening as a man wearing a cassock walks away from Villette's house where Villette lies dead on the floor. Shortly afterward, in the church confessional, Keller confesses to Father Logan that he accidentally killed Villette while trying to rob him. Keller tells his wife about his deed and assures her that the priest will not say anything because he is forbidden from revealing information acquired through confessions.
  The next morning, Keller goes to Villette's house at his regularly scheduled gardening time and reports Villette's death to the police. Father Logan also goes to the crime scene after hearing Mrs. Keller mention that her husband is there and finds the police there. Logan is interviewed by Inspector Larrue (Karl Malden), who witnesses Logan talking to a woman after he leaves.
  At the police station, two young girls tell Inspector Larrue they saw a priest leaving Villette's house. This prompts Larrue to call Father Logan in for more questioning, but Logan refuses to provide any information about the murder. Now suspecting Logan, Larrue orders a detective to follow Logan and contacts Crown Prosecutor Robertson (Brian Aherne), who is attending a party hosted by Ruth Grandfort (Anne Baxter), the woman Logan talked to outside of Villette's house, and her husband Pierre (Roger Dann), 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.
  Larrue calls Ruth and Logan in for questioning, and Ruth blurts 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, and then she married Pierre. 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 as being Mrs. Grandfort. The next time Ruth saw Logan was several years later when he was ordained as a priest.
  Villette 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 fix the whole thing.
  Ruth's meeting with Father Logan almost provides him with an alibi, but Larrue showed some evidence to Robertson. That evidence was in the form of an autopsy report, which stated that Villette couldn't have died before 11.30 pm, and the fact that Ruth and Logan winded their meeting at 11 said that Logan, indeed, with a solid motive to kill Villette (him blackmailing Ruth and all) also was short of alibis.
  Knowing he will be arrested, Logan turns himself in the next day at Larrue's office. Keller has planted the bloody cassock among Logan's belongings, and when Logan is tried in court, Keller testifies that he saw Logan enter the church after the murder, acting suspiciously.
  The jury testifies Father Logan as not guilty, due to insufficient evidence, but the crowd outside the courthouse mobs Logan as he leaves the court. This upsets Keller's wife to an extent that she starts to shout out that Logan wasn't the murderer. Keller, realizing that his time was short (as there were only some seconds left before his wife would start blurting that he was the murderer), he shoots her, resulting in her death. He then runs away but is pursued by police officers. 
  Larrue finally guesses that Keller is the murderer, corners him in the grand ballroom of the Château Frontenac, and unknowingly tricks him into confessing his sins as well
caption: Montgomery Clift in the I Confess film trailer
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