I Confess / Stage Fright

I CONFESS, 1953, Warner Bros., 95 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Montgomery Clift plays a priest who undergoes a crisis of faith when he hears a murderer's confession; as the film progresses, he takes on the man's guilt as his own, both literally (as police wrongly suspect him of the murder) and psychologically. The French critics of the 1950s considered this to be one of Hitchcock's major works, and it remains among his most underrated masterpieces.

STAGE FRIGHT, 1950, Warner Bros. 110 min. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Jane Wyman is a struggling actress who helps hide fellow student Richard Todd when he's accused of killing his lover's husband. Marlene Dietrich co-stars in this murder mystery set in the world of the theater, a setting that allows Hitchcock to explore deception from varying perspectives in every scene.