Full Confession

Victor McLaglen stars as Pat McGinnis, a brute with a sensitive soul who falls afoul of fate thanks to wanting to impress his love, Molly Sullivan (Sally Eilers). Getting sent up on a minor charge to avoid a murder rap, Pat becomes the pet project of Father Loma (Joseph Calleia). Befriending Molly, Loma brings her to see Pat and begins Pat's process of parole. After a near-fatal incident brings a full confession out of Pat, Loma now knows that Pat did the deed for which innocent family man Michael O'Keefe (Barry Fitzgerald) faces the chair. With his silence sealed by the sanctity of confession, Father Loma begins a relentless pursuit of Pat's soul in order to save two lives. From its nearly silent, searing opening, tracking a desperate man as he plunges, first into crime and then killing, Full Confession, under John Farrow's taut direction, leads us headlong into the world later synonymous with Film Noir.

• crime
• drama