Full Confession

Blood symbolizes salvation in John Farrow’s Full Confession, an overtly Christian-themed noir about a conflicted priest who knows that one of his flock has gotten away with murder, a premise used again by Alfred Hitchcock in the much glossier I Confess (1953). Brawny Victor McLaglen plays Pat McGinnis, a morally dubious man who murders a policeman but then commits a much lesser offense as a decoy (for which he’s given a light sentence), later learning that the jovial, innocent Michael O’Keefe (Barry Fitzgerald) has been arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death for McGinnis’ greater crime. Later, while on his deathbed from a very dramatic bulldozer accident, McGinnis confesses the truth to longtime friend Father Loma (the always fantastic Joseph Calleia), only to recant the confession once it’s clear he’s going to survive. Bound by the secrecy of the confessional, Father Loma finds himself not only in a moral pickle but, later on, nearly impaled on iron spikes! Sally Eilers plays Molly Sullivan, the girlfriend for whom McGinnis steals a fur coat early on and whose hand in marriage Father Loma attempts to use as a bargaining chip. Farrow and cinematographer Hunt establish noir atmospherics here and there, especially when McGinnis wanders the foggy city streets as guilt finally floods his resistant heart.