ThiefHott Too much of everything

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

calvinnme This one started with such promise. A man is walking along a crude path from a hilltop to the beach. He is encountered by an old salt who warns him about the dangerous path. He comes to a cottage, but when he hears the door opening he hides, the man leaving the house looks around, has as a smoke, and goes up the path to the top of the hill. When he is out of sight a man's scream rings out. What a great and mysterious set up. Don't get your hopes up, because it is all downhill or treading water from there.So the next setting is daylight in a beachside amusement park. The man who was hiding in the bushes is asking for a job, (Derek Farr as Jim Medway), but he seems more like he is pumping his old acquaintance for information about two murders the night before. What follows is Medway going to businessman William Hartnell, telling him that he killed his wife (she was the one Medway was going to see at the cottage), but he will tell the police that Hartnell did it because he knows Hartnell was having an affair with his wife. There were plenty of reasons for Hartnell to kill her - Hartnell is married, he didn't want the affair exposed, etc. And Hartnell WAS there. He was the guy leaving the house as Medway approached. Then Medway does what anybody does who threatens a man with lots of power who isn't afraid of violence. He spends a day frolicking at the beach! There is so much going on here it really blunts the power of the story because it has nothing to do with the story and just looks weird in a noir. Medway meets up with a girl who has her own problems - completely non criminal ones. Then there is Hartnell, who to be such a big powerful man of action, really does nothing but pace back and forth in his big office smoking heavily. Peter Lorre is Hartnell's friend who offers to kill Medway and make it look like an accident, and their relationship seems odd. Lorre acts like he looks forward to killing....ANYBODY! And he hovers over Hartnell like he is a little bit in love with him and the sentiment seems to be returned.The last fifteen minutes or so make it almost worth it, but in the meantime you'll just be asking yourself "Where IS this thing going?".

Leofwine_draca DOUBLE CONFESSION is a once-lost British slice of film noir, filmed in the coastal resort of Bexhill-on-Sea. The film itself is only partially successful, featuring a very bland and undistinguished leading man in Derek Farr, and is also quite badly written with lots of extraneous sub-plots to pad out the running time. But it also has one of the most wonderful casts in a film from this era.The general vibe here is BRIGHTON ROCK, although there's also a murder mystery aspect to the story as Farr attempts to solve a dual murder: that of his wife, and another chap who happened to fall from a cliff at virtually the same time. Sadly the premise is confusing, mainly because the second cliff-top murder isn't actually shown, and things don't become clear until the very end. The female cast also fare badly, engaged in bland sub-plots that merely slow the pacing down.Still, there are some good set-pieces here and there, not least an attack by speedboat that bears some stylistic similarities to the famous crop-duster attack in NORTH BY NORTHWEST - maybe Hitch got inspiration from this? The rousing climax is also worth waiting for, but the main reason to watch this is the supporting cast which is absolutely packed with familiar faces. William Hartnell and Peter Lorre make a fine tag-team as the villains, but that's only the start. There's Ronald Howard as a journalist, George Woodbridge as a copper, Leslie Dwyer as a random guy enjoying himself at the beach, and the wonderful comic actor Naunton Wayne (THE LADY VANISHES) as the investigating detective. There are also bit parts for future faces like CARRY ON actors Peter Butterworth and Esma Cannon. All in all a great collection of names which makes DOUBLE CONFESSION well worth a watch.

howardmorley Despite seeing many British 1940s/50s films. this was the first time I had seen "Double Confession".The cast reads like a veritable whose who of well known actors/actresses working in 1950.I have seen Derek Farr playing very anodyne parts in films like "Quiet Wedding" (1941) & its companion film "Quiet Weekend" (1946) but given the right casting he could turn on his thespian power playing the lead in this film.Ronald Howard (who plays the newspaper editor) was 32 when he made this film and looks every inch his father's son.His father being of course the great actor Leslie Howard.Naunton Wayne (in one of his outings without Basil Radford - Charters & Caldicott) plays the police inspector who actually drinks whiskey while on duty!Another film Naunton played solo in 1950 was "Highly Dangerous" with Margaret Lockwood.Kathleen Harrison plays her usual working class role seemingly trying to "pick up" Leslie Dwyer on the beach.Edward Rigby adds his usual colourful local accented character.The only surprise to me was Joan Hopkins whom Derek Farr befriends at the beach resort.I saw a documentary recently and many women who had illegitimate children felt compelled to renounce motherhood for them and send them off for adoption , if it would have caused a family scandal if they had kept them.Joan plays such a mother agonising over this type of moral dilemma.She does have lovely diction and it is always a pleasure to hear beautifully spoken English which actresses were taught in their drama academies at the time.Unlike the two previous reviewers, I notice the mass of user ratings on IMDb rated this 7.3/10 which is good and I too rated it 7/10.I agree the plotting is a bit confused and could have done with better editing but I enjoyed this film nevertheless.

Anne_Sharp Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock" seems to have been the inspiration for this intriguing but not very coherent suspense story about murder and sundry underworld goings-on at a seaside resort. The narrative gets stuck somewhere between conventional English murder mystery and American-style noir and just never loosens up, and the sight of all those British holiday-makers lounging around on the beach in long dresses and tweed suits just sums up the ludicrous uptightness that plagues the whole concept. Peter Lorre is brought in to jazz up the proceedings in a rather daring role as a henchman who clearly appears to be carrying a torch for his villainous (male) employer.