Double Confession

Arriving late at night in the seaside town of Seagate, Jim Medway (Derek Farr) heads for his estranged wife's isolated coastal cottage. As he arrives, he sees prominent local businessman Charlie Durham (William Hartnell) coming out of the house, in which he then finds his wife dead. With the awareness that his wife had been having an affair with Durham, Medway embarks on attempts to blackmail the wealthy entrepreneur or get him arrested for murdering his wife. However, Durham's sinister homicidal sidekick Paynter (Peter Lorre) is out to protect his boss by arranging a little "accident" for Medway. As Inspector Tenby (Naunton Wayne) slowly gathers clues to solve the mystery, he begins to suspect there is a less obvious culprit.

It was one of two films Ken Annakin made on loan out from Gainsborough Pictures to Associated British, the other being Landfall. Annakin wrote "Neither had very good scripts, nor exciting casting... except for Peter Lorre" who was in Double Confession. Annakin admired Lorre so much he allowed "him to play his role in an offbeat, unconventional way" but "the result was that the film was pulled completely out of joint. Lorre stole every scene and acted like the boss of the casino instead of the henchman!" Annakin says Bill Hartnell, who played Lorre's boss, "was driven, quite justifiably, to bitter anger and even blows. I learned the hard way that a director must guard against allowing a gimmicky actor to add so much ‘shtick’ that he throws the balance of the whole film."[6]

In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther commented, "it rambles around in maddening fashion for what seems interminable hours while Naunton Wayne as a deadpanned detective tries to figure out who killed whom...It is all very odd and disconnected, especially when Peter Lorre pops in from time to time to behave like a degenerate and offer to kill anybody in the house";[7] while more recently Allmovie wrote, "The presence of Peter Lorre assured a modicum of American business for the British meller Double Confession...Lorre's role is largely peripheral, but he does supply a few moments of genuine menace";[8] while Sky Movies wrote, "Director Ken Annakin showed in an earlier film, Holiday Camp, that he liked to be beside the seaside. But, in this superior crime drama, he makes the resort of 'Seagate' appear a very sinister place indeed. The whodunnit plot benefits enormously from Peter Lorre's almost apologetic menace";[9] and The Digital Fix concluded, "it’s an excellent piece of work. Tightly constructed, exceptionally well-performed and with a wonderful sense of place, Double Confession deserves to find an enthusiastic audience."[10]

• BFI 75 Most Wanted entry, with extensive notes
• Double Confession at IMDb