When a sleazy lawyer turns up dead in 1950s Quebec, police stand befuddled until a pair of young girls present a critical piece of information. They watched a shadowy figure escape the scene that night, clad in the cassock of a Catholic priest. As it happens, detectives remember speaking with a young pastor the next morning, acting nervous and suspicious near the corpse. Father Logan can’t provide an alibi for his whereabouts, but not for the reason investigators suspect: he took confession from the real killer that night, but his dedication to the faith is too strong to be so forthcoming.

It’s a premise that could only really work in simpler, more puritanical times, and that’s not the end of it. As we learn, the priest does have a connection to the victim - he was being blackmailed - and the details of that scandal would be even more innocuous by today’s standards. Organized religion at the time took vocal offense to scenes featuring a man of the cloth, years prior to taking his vows, canoodling with an old girlfriend, which lends credence to the film’s main points.

Unfortunately, there’s a distinct lack of dramatic tension to this dance. Hitchcock’s cinematic mastery wasn’t quite up to his later standards, so there’s very little visual interest to maintain our attention as the slow-paced investigation flops and wriggles. For a brief moment, after the trial, I caught a glimpse of what might have been a daring, profound climax. Then, in a flash, it evaporates in favor of the predictable end result I suspected from the beginning. _I Confess_ asks some tough questions, but refuses to see them through to any bitter ends.