(1955, b/w) Following Mass in St Nicholas Church, the Cardinal (Alec Guinness) is arrested on the charge of treason against the state; as he departs under police escort, he declares that any confession he may make will be "a lie or the result of human weakness."

This controversial film (banned at the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals), directed by Peter Glenville from Bridget Boland's powerful screenplay, depicts the events of unnamed persons in an nameless nation, suggestive of what might possibly happen anywhere.

His Eminence the Cardinal, a man of indestructible spirit, of a brilliant, subtle mind, a hero of the Resistance, "tenacious, wary and proud" faces his interrogator, the inquisitor (Jack Hawkins), employing a "fascinating psychological approach" toward obtaining a confession.

The authorities are suspicious of religion for being "an organization outside the state" and outside the Party. Concerned that the churches are filling up with worshipers again, the general wants to discredit in the eyes of the restless populace the Cardinal (dangerous because of his influence on the poor) but realizes the risk of international condemnation for not quickly bringing him to trial.

Offered a pre-written confession, the Cardinal declines to sign; he is placed in a cell of solitary confinement with a bright ceiling lamp always on. Eschewing drugs or physical torture, the inquisitor relies initially on physical exhaustion to wear down his subject.

"Surely it's a confession you're after," says the Cardinal, "not the truth." "It's your mind that we want," replies the inquisitor. (Everyone's got something on his conscience, explains the gaoler, believing the Cardinal to be "a confidence trickster." A woman whose husband has fled the country says, in reference to the Cardinal, to another prison guard, with whom she's having a romance: "I don't know how I can love you even being near such work…. He's innocent.")

With no result after three months of interrogation by the inquisitor (approaching his subject as a doctor attempting to treat a disease), the impatient general demands a confession or the application of other, harsher methods. Presented with photographic evidence, the Cardinal ("God, keep my watch") discredits the forgeries; tape recordings of the interrogation are edited and pressed into a gramophone to make the Cardinal sound as if he were admitting to crimes.

"Shirk nothing, duck nothing, overcome everything," says the priest. After hinting at despising the authorities as fools (not like the leadership during the Resistance), the inquisitor threatens to send the Cardinal's anesthetized mother to the research hospital if he refuses yet again to sign the confession. "You don't know us," responds the Cardinal, "my mother and I." "I was beginning to dislike my work," retorts the inquisitor, realizing that the churchman is willing to sacrifice his mother rather than submit: "I won't dislike it now."

It would be better to believe in a God others don't or can't know. Operating on the assumption that the subtler the mind, the more sensitive the conscience, the inquisitor gradually strips away the Cardinal's defenses - "What are you hiding? Why are you ashamed?" - revealing his weakness - rising from a child of cod to a man of God.

Prepared to make a full confession at his trial that "I betrayed them all," the Cardinal who arrived with certainty disappoints those who expect him to use the courtroom as his pulpit. Nevertheless, the Cardinal's conduct has a wrenching effect on the inquisitor.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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