Confession (1937)







Kay Francis gives what is probably her best, most stunning performance in "Confession" - a near shot-by-shot remake of a 1935 Pola Negri soaper called "Mazurka" about a mother/singer who kills her former lover (Basil Rathbone) as soon as she finds out that he is about court her daughter (Jane Bryan). She is put on trial and asked to recount her story. This is a pretty much a routine "Madame X" weepie about maternal sacrifice but under the direction of Joe May, a German emigré who once collaborated with Fritz Lang in Germany, it becomes an amazingly stylish melodrama with sprawling narrative, expressionist outbuts, inventive camera movements, and interesting use of flashbacks. The final moments after the trial are tragic and sad. I love all Kay Francis' movies; "Confession", I think, is her very best.