ONE GIRL’S CONFESSION


US, 1953, 74 minutes, Black and white.
Cleo Moore, Hugo Haas, Glenn Langan, Anthony Jochim.
Directed by Hugo Haas.

Hugo Haas was a successful actor in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s but fled Europe and came to the United States where he helped in propaganda work during World War II.

In the late 1940s to the early 1960s he appeared as an actor in many films but also wrote a series of small-budget supporting features, generally stirring himself as an older man, with potential, but ruining his opportunities. He started films with Beverly Michaels but had a series of seven films with Cleo Moore from 1952 to 1957.

Cleo Moore was a platinum blonde in something of the Jean Harlow tradition, compared with the time with Marilyn Monroe. Generally she played sympathetic characters with a touch of ambiguity. To see her at the most dangerous and vengeful femme fatale style, see The Other Woman.

This time she is a young woman working at a diner, for a man who was responsible for her upbringing but she is too to an orphanage. He continually claims to be supporting her because of her father but he has accumulated $25,000 and she steals it, goes to the police and confesses. She then goes to prison, makes a good impression, especially with the warden and the chaplain, Father Benedict. They help to get a job in the garden, recommend her for parole – although warning that the money was cursed.

She returns, the diner is gone, she gets a job as a waitress in a new establishment, slaps the owner for his advances, he being very impressed and giving her a job. He is an inveterate gambler and eventually loses his money and the club. In the meantime, there is a sympathetic fisherman who is attracted to her.

The complication is that she feels sympathy for the owner and his card losses, indicates where the money is but he returns without it and she assumes that he has stolen it. She attacks him, hitting him with a bottle and assumes that is a dead – and she once again goes to the police to confess. She also digs up the money, has moral dilemmas but decides to give it to the Sacred Heart orphanage.

However, he is not dead, she relinquishes the money to the nuns, has a possibility of working in the new club with the owner but he urges her to go on the fishing boat with the young man. Happy and moral ending.

1. The title and expectations? The focus on Mary? The nature of her confession, the consequences?

2. The work of the director, his collaborations with Cleo Moore? His character, possibilities for success, down and out, double-dealing? Yet happy ending?

3. The focus on Mary, her work in the diner, the boss and his relationship with her father, the deals, the touch of the crooked, Mary in the orphanage, her resentments, love for her father? The owner and his $25,000? Her taking it?

4. For going to the police, the confession? Her insistence? In court, sentenced to prison? Not revealing where the money was?

5. In prison, Mary and her good nature, helping the other prisoners with their work? The attention of the warden, the women going to mass, the role of Father Benedict, with the warden and their good opinion of Mary? Her being able to choose her work, choosing the garden, the friendship with the gardener, his comments about the role of roots, his interest in what she had done? The warden and Father Benedict influential in getting her parole? Father Benedict and his moral stances? Driving Mary, encouraging her? But indicating to her that the money she stole was cursed?

6. Mary’s return, the diner having gone? A new place, meeting the owner, his character, incessant and compulsive gambling, his partners, winning, and his losing streak? Mary, slapping him for his advances, his being attracted, offering her the job? Her work, friendship with the barman, his advice? Johnny, finding her attractive, his background, fishing, coming to the diner?

7. The issue of the money? Johnny and his needing a loan, her considering it, explaining how she had a friend with money? Her sympathy for the owner, his desperate losses, her telling him where the money was, his return, violent towards her, not having found the money, calling her a liar? Her being upset, hiding away in her apartment?

8. The encounter with the new manager, finding out that the former owner was still in possession, had moved to an expensive apartment, was throwing a party? The sitting and watching the party?

9. Going into his apartment, his being drunk, asleep, trying to wake him, angry with him, hitting him with the bottle? His girlfriend arriving, accusing her of murder? Then the explanation that he had a lucky streak and this was not her money?

10. Her going to dig up the money, her moral dilemma, going to the Sacred Heart orphanage, putting the money through the gate?

11. Going to the police, her confession, desperately insisting that she had killed the owner? The police ringing the hotel, his being alive, the police sending her away? Her going to retrieve the money, the postman arriving, her not being able to get the box through the grate, the nuns coming, finding the money? The decision to let them keep it?

12. Finding the owner again, his cheerfulness, offering her a job, reconciliation with him? Johnny, going out on the boat, asking her to come with him, the blessing of the owner?

13. And so, happy and moral ending?