"Strange Confession" was the only Universal "Inner Sanctum" movie I had NEVER seen until the recent release of the entire series on DVD, but from the first few minutes it seemed familiar and I quickly realized why: though the opening credits list the script as based on a "composition" by Jean Bart (which made it seem like it was based on something she wrote in grade school), it was a quite obvious remake of the 1934 Universal film "The Man Who Reclaimed His Head," with Claude Rains, Joan Bennett and Lionel Atwill in the roles played here by Lon Chaney, Jr., Brenda Joyce and J. Carrol Naish. The original took place in France on the eve of the First World War and contained a pacifist message that M. Coates Webster, scenarist for the remake, unsurprisingly omitted since the U.S. was still at war when "Strange Confession" was made. Webster also changed the two antagonists from a radical newspaper editor at odds with his publisher to a scientist at odds with the owner of the pharmaceutical company he works for. Nonetheless, the two films are quite close otherwise and, though hardly as good a film as "The Man Who Reclaimed His Head" (and where is THAT one on DVD, Universal?), "Strange Confession" retains a surprising degree of the original's quality.
Review of Strange Confession
