Full Confession is a 1939

1939 in film

The year 1939 in motion pictures can be justified as being called the most outstanding one ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year .- Events :Motion picture historians and film often rate...

 is a US crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

 drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 film made by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 by John Farrow

John Farrow

John Villiers Farrow, CBE was an Australian, later American, film director, producer and screenwriter. In 1957 he won the Academy Award for Best Writing / Best Screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days and in 1942 he was nominated as Best Director for Wake Island.-Life and career:Farrow was...

 from an adaptation by Jerome Cady

Jerome Cady

Jerome Cady was a Hollywood screenwriter.What promised to be a lucrative and successful career as a film writer - graduating up from Charlie Chan movies in the late 30s to such well respected war films as Guadalcanal Diary , a successful adaptation of Forever Amber and the police procedural Call...

 of Leo Birinski

Leo Birinski

Leo Birinski was a playwright, screenwriter and director. He worked in Austria-Hungary, Germany and in the United States. As a playwright in Europe he gained his biggest popularity in 1910 – 1917, then he was forgotten. From the 20s to the 40s of the 20th century he worked mainly as a...

's story.

The film stars Victor McLaglen

Victor McLaglen

Victor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen was an English boxer and World War I veteran who became a successful film actor.Towards the end of his life he was naturalised as a U.S. citizen.-Early life:...

, Sally Eilers

Sally Eilers

-Life and career:Born as Dorothea Sally Eilers in New York City to a Jewish-American mother, Paula, and an Irish-American father, Peter Eilers, . She was educated in Los Angeles and went into films because so many of her friends were in pictures. She studied for the stage, specialising in dancing...

, Barry Fitzgerald

Barry Fitzgerald

Barry Fitzgerald was an Irish stage, film and television actor.-Life:He was born William Joseph Shields in Walworth Road, Portobello, Dublin, Ireland. He is the older brother of Irish actor Arthur Shields. He went to Skerry's College, Dublin, before going on to work in the civil service, while...

 and Joseph Calleia

Joseph Calleia

Joseph Calleia was a Maltese born American singer, composer, screenwriter and actor, both on Broadway and in film...

.

The film was made in Black and White.

Plot

Pat McGinnis (McLaglen) murders a policeman and escapes by committing a more minor crime, for which he is arrested and jailed. An innocent man, Michael O'Keefe (Fitzgerald), is convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. While delirious after an injury, McGinnis confesses to priest Father Loma (Calleia). Loma, whose flock includes McGinnis's girlriend Molly Sullivan (Eilers) as well as the O'Keefe clan, struggles to find a way to save O'Keefe without violating the sanctity of confession. He must convince McGinnis to give himself up.