Questions (SPOILERS) - Confession (1937) Discussion

[–] mojo2004 15 years ago

1. I just started watching the film on TCM and from the plot I'd say the mother killed him to prevent her daughter being ruined.

2.My guess is he would have no way of knowing it's her daughter. Since she was ruined long ago the daughter would have been very young and they mo longer have the same last name.

Leading the blind squirrels of inquiry to the lost nuts of illumination.

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[–] mojo2004 15 years ago

I watched it all the way through. She saw him out with her daughter when they were in the restaurant/club she was singing at. They recognized each other and she grabbed a gun and shot him as he was leaving with her daughter.

He never knew they were mother & daughter.

The trial was great. The daughter never found out because her mother told her story only to the judge & both lawyers without the jury or attendees in court being present. The judge & both lawyers keep her wish that they not say anything to let on once the jury and everyone was let back in because her daughter was in the courtroom and didn't know who she really was. Without knowing all the facts but guessing because the judge hinted at the motive the jury acquitted her.

Leading the blind squirrels of inquiry to the lost nuts of illumination.

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[–] ObstinateAnnette 15 years ago

1. What exactly happened the night Vera got drunk? Did Michael "rape" or have sex with her that night?

He took advantage of her while she was drunk. Nowadays, they'd probably call it "date rape", but back then they blamed the woman for putting herself in such a position.

2. Did Michael know that Lisa was Vera's daughter when he was pursuing her?

No, there was nothing to indicate that he knew she was Vera's daughter. Quite a coincidence, no?

I need my 1987 DG20 Casio electric guitar set to mandolin, yeah...

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[–] shoshanah21 13 years ago

So the young girl was really kissing her father! Yuck!

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[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] nscom-1 13 years ago

Basil Rathbone wasn't the girl's father. Ian Hunter, her husband was. She didn't didn't go out and socialize until after the baby was born. She only did because her doctor said she should get out and be with people.

She had known Rathbone before, but there was nothing between them before she was married. He took advantage of her when she met up with him at a party, and when her husband returned from war, he found out about her dalliance with Rathbone and divorced her. She was branded as a bad woman, so he got custody of the child and married another woman, who never told the child she wasn't her natural mother.

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[–] PremiereDame 13 years ago

Is everyone certain that he didn't know that the girl was Vera's daughter? I understand that he was an incurable skirt chaser, but he was in such haste to exit the night club that it felt like it may have been even more than the fact that he ruined her life.

edit: I do realize that destroying her life is sufficient grounds to am-scray, yet still, he seemed to react with an urgency that seemed out of character for his callous, reprehensible behavior.

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[–] Reedmalloy 13 years ago

Michailow took an underage girl (it was 1930 and the flashback went back to 1912, before Lisa was born, making her 17 at most) to a seamy cabaret to complete a seduction. He was a well-known and popular pianist (a point made by the autograph montage). He made the unambiguous comment to Lisa that he chose the place so that neither of them would be recognized. But the privacy he anticipated was foiled unexpectedly by the spotlight. His shock at recognizing Vera was as apparent as hers and a point of testimony at trial (it established the premeditation). Leonide had been long dead by the time Michailow first saw Lisa at the conservatory (the only possible link to the past) and there was nothing anywhere else in the script to suggest Michailow could possibly know that Lisa Koslov was Vera Kowalska's daughter. Remember, Leonide's divorce attorney reminded Vera that Michailow absconded rather than testify on her behalf, ending whatever chance she might have had of her retaining custody of Lisa. He had to have known that any confrontation with her would at minimum be a disastrous scandal for him, especially with a young girl in tow.

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[–] gribfritz2 13 years ago

No. But that would have made it much more interesting, creepy, and gave a better motive for the murder.

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[–] Reedmalloy 13 years ago

Just so we're all clear on this, "taking advantage" of a female rendered incapable of refusing by intoxication is felony rape in all 50 states of the United States. In the circumstances depicted here, Michailow announced to everyone he was taking her home, then did not. The observation about attitudes in 1930 is mostly correct, of course, although Vera's decision to tell Leonide (until she realized he had just lost an arm) shows it was not absolute. The script implies that it was her failure to do so that fixed her blame in the mind of her husband.

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[–] PremiereDame 13 years ago

Thank you for the filling in the blanks. I got so swept away by the tale and the performances, I missed some salient story points. Thanks.

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[–] Echo_in_big_sky 12 years ago

Although Vera may not have known for sure if she was raped, she must have had a sense of it, because the first thing she wanted to do when she got home, even before seeing her baby who was awake, was to take a hot bath.

She wanted to wash him off of her. That's how I interpreted that information.

Always the officiant, never the bride. http://www.withthiskissitheewed.com

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[–] Popcorngal (4937) 5 months ago

I just saw the film, at first I thought maybe he just let her lounge in an extra room, to sleep off the hangover, but considering she took a hot bath, it is logical to assume , he sexually violated her.

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