Shadow of a Doubt

Plot synopsis:
Couples in costumes in a room with 1900 décor are dancing to the music of The Merry Widow waltz by Franz Lehar.A man dressed in a suit is lying on a bed, deep in thought. Money bills are on his dresser and tumbled on the floor.The landlady, Mrs Martin (Constance Purdy) knocks, opens the door and tells "Mr. Spencer" (Joseph Cotten) that two men were asking for him but she had followed his instructions, told them he was out. They are waiting outside at the corner. Spencer, whose real name is Oakley, gets off the bed, picks up the money, goes out past the men, who do not react, but begin to follow him at a distance. He walks quickly, turns corners, loses them as he goes up a building and watches them from the rooftop, making sure he has lost them.Oakley is at a pay phone booth, sending a telegram to Santa Rosa, California, telling his sister that he is coming for a visit and will arrive in a couple of days. He signs the telegram Uncle Charlie.In Santa Rosa, a teen living in a two story house is lying in bed. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright), is frustrated by boredom, complaining to her father, Joseph "Joe" Newton (Henry Travers) because nothing interesting ever happens in her life or that of her family.Charlotte decides to improve things by inviting her favorite Uncle Charlie to come for a visit. She not only shares a nickname with her mother's youngest brother, but a special bond. At times she feels the charming man is the only one who understands her need to be extraordinary, that there is more to her than her small town allows.At the telegraph office she learns that he has just announced by telegram that he is on his way. She hums a tune, over and over again.Her mother Emma "Emmy" Oakley-Norton (Patricia Collinge) is radiant with pleasure at the prospect of seeing her youngest brother. She picks up the humming of the tune. Neither she nor Charlotte are able to identify it.Oakley, on the train towards Santa Rosa, has kept out of sight behind Pullman curtains. As he gets off the train he walks looking downward and uses a cane as an old frail person might. The train clerk (Clarence Muse) offers to help him, as do a doctor (Edward Fielding) and his wife (Sarah Edwards) but Oakley pretends to be a grumpy person and rejects everybody's help. However, as he sees the family coming, his walk becomes completely normal and he is effusively greeted. Emmy is not there, but the father, young Charlie, and her siblings nerdy Ann (Edna May Wonacott) and Roger (Charles Bates) are there waiting for uncle Charlie.There is much joy as he arrives at the Newton house and gives presents all around. Charlotte gets a special ring with a large emerald. Young Charlie says that her mother is right when she says that she and uncle Charlie are so similar, like twins. She makes a comment that he always keeps a secret side of himself, and he tells her that she shouldn't guess everything about him. She notices some engraved initials inside the ring and asks her uncle about it, but Oakley claims no knowledge the initials were there, alleging that the jeweller lied to him, selling a second-hand ring instead of a brand new one.At dinner, Charlotte keeps humming her tune and asks around whether anyone recognizes it. Her father says it's clearly a waltz, Oakley says he thinks it's The Blue Danube, but when she starts to say the right title, The Merry Widow, uncle Charlie spills a glass of wine onto the mantel. [NOTE: The tune is The Merry Widow]Two men, Herbert "Herbie" Hawkins (Hume Cronyn) and Joe, young Charlie's father, discuss what they would do if one of them would desire to kill somebody. One says that he would do it disguising the murder as a suicide.Oakley picks up the newspaper and begins reading. He notices a story that has special significance, takes out the pages, and calls the younger kids, Ann and Roger, to see how he can fold the double sheet so it looks like a house, tearing out rectangular holes for a door and a window. They reassemble the paper without the pages used for the house, since the father hasn't seen the paper yet, and he hides the torn page in his coat pocket.Later, young Charlie notices the hidden newspaper pages. She tells him that now she will know what his secret is, as she believes that he appeared in the newspaper. He tells her that the worrying news story was not about him, but about somebody he used to know. Young Charlie steals the cut outs from her uncle's coat pocket. She unfolds them and starts looking for something significant, but uncle Charlie becomes a bit violent, tugging her arm. She gets scared, but uncle Charlie dismisses it alleging it was not a nice story about a friend of his.Soon after, Oakley learns that his sister has made an appointment with two men, one younger, one middle aged, who claim to be making a census type survey for an agency, claiming that the Newtons are a typical American family, and that they would be coming later to ask questions and take photographs. Emmy tells him with excitement about their upcoming fame. Emmy mentions the only existing photograph of uncle Charlie when he was much younger. She tells young Charlie how her uncle had to stay in bed for a long time when he was a child, and when he recovered he started to behave like a troublesome boy.Oakley has announced that he might stay a long while in Santa Rosa and goes to the bank where Mr. Newton works to make a deposit. At the bank his personality changes abruptly. He makes loud embarrassing jokes about embezzlements and crooked accounting. He deposits forty thousand dollars he is carrying in cash [enough to buy a nearly luxurious home in those days], still making aggressive unpleasant comments all around. The bank director, Mr Green, (Edwin Stanley) laughs it off, altogether with his wife, Mrs Margaret Green (Isabel Randolph)Oakley gets unusually upset at the prospect of being asked questions and even photographed, refusing to see the two visitors, calling his sister names for being so naïve as to believe them. The two visitors come anyway. They are the same two men who were thrown off his track by Oakley back at his apartment. They ask a few questions and take some pictures, but their focus is clearly Oakley, who avoids them, refuses to answer questions alleging privacy rights. When one of them takes a picture of Oakley by surprise, Oakley gets very angry and successfully insists that the negative roll be handed to him.The younger of the two young men, requests that young Charlie act as his guide around town later. She reluctantly agrees, only to please her mother. That evening he speaks to Charlotte away from the house, identifying himself as Detective Jack Graham (Macdonald Carey) and telling her that her uncle is one of two men who are suspected of being the serial killer known as the "Merry Widow Murderer" because his mode of operation is seducing wealthy widows and murdering them for their money later, by poison.The next day, young Charlie sleeps all day long. Ann tells her mother that she doesn't want to sit close to uncle Charlie anymore. The mother says that the children would take turns to sit alongside uncle Charlie, because they fought to sit close to him.Charlotte at first refuses to consider that her uncle could be a killer, but she cannot help remembering how strangely he acted on several occasions. She starts to suspect that the uncle she once idolized is not what he appears. Particularly chilling is a family dinner conversation during which Oakley reveals a total contempt for rich widows, comparing them to fat animals readied for slaughter. Herbert appears during dinner, and observes that the family is having dinner later and later each time. Young Charlie suffers a nervous breakdown when Herbert and Joe keep on talking on ways to kill each other.The niece's growing suspicion becomes apparent to her uncle. She runs away, and her uncle runs after her. The town police officer stops her. Oakley pushes her to a bar, where she comes across Louise Finch (Janet Shaw), an old school mate of her who was sacked from the town's department store. He confronts Young Charlie and admits that he is indeed sought by the police, but claims it is all a coincidence and he will be cleared once the other suspect is caught.Later, she tries to reconstruct the crumpled and torn pages of the newspaper that her uncle had hidden, but is unable to come to a conclusion. She rushes to the library, which has just closed, but convinces the librarian, Mrs. Cochran (Eily Malyon) to let her look at newspapers for just five minutes. She finds the paper and an article that describes the Merry Widow Murderer, and says one of the victims was once a famous entertainer, whose initials she recognizes as matching the inscription on the inside of the emerald ring her uncle gave her. When she shows the ring to her uncle, he begs her for help. She reluctantly agrees not to say anything, as long as he leaves soon, to avoid a horrible scandal in the town that would shock her family, especially her mother, who has always idolized her youngest brother.Jack Graham and Fred Saunders (Wallace Ford) ask Ann to tell young Charlie to talk to them. They are with a friend of the eldest daughter of the Nortons, Catherine (Estelle Jewell). Finally, they talk to Charlie, who will try to convince her uncle to leave town to avoid scandal. But soon...The detectives have sent Oakley's surprise picture back East. Their conversation reveals that the roll of negatives handed to Oakley had been a decoy. But while they are waiting for any conclusions from the evidence of the picture, news breaks that the second suspect was killed fleeing from the police, and is assumed to have been the guilty one.Jack Graham comes to tell Charlotte that their mission in Santa Rosa has ended. Jack then reveals that he is much attracted to Charlotte, would like to court her and maybe like to marry her someday.Oakley acts calm and satisfied at first, and takes up a normal routine, but evidently can't relax because his niece fully knows his secret. Soon, the young woman has a near fatal accident: As she is coming down the steep back entrance stairs, one of the steps breaks in two and she is lucky that she is just at the moment grasping the handrail firmly. Later she inspects the broken wood but is unable to find telltale signs of tampering.Oakley has agreed to give public lectures in Santa Rosa, and becomes something of a local celebrity. On the way to one such lecture, the family is preparing to go in their car plus a taxicab, and during the departure preparations young Charlie is trapped in a closed garage with a car spewing exhaust fumes. Oakley is playing music very loudly inside the house, and delaying a planned departure, but Charlotte is saved by chance that Herbie Hawkins hears her inside the garage.The moment young Charlie is proved to have survived that incident, Oakley announces that he is leaving by train the very next morning. Charlie and her siblings briefly get on board to look at his compartment. The train departs with Charlie still aboard, as Oakley physically prevents her timely descent from the train. Oakley struggles to control Charlie's screams as well as constrain her for a while, waiting for the train to pick up speed before he throws her onto tracks alongside. But because one hand is busy covering her mouth, her survival instinct is able to overcome his greater strength, and he trips and falls outside into the path of an oncoming train.There is a funeral for Uncle Charlie much attended by the people of Santa Rosa. Nothing has been said publicly about any connection to the Merry Widow Murders.Jack Graham has come back to be with Charlotte. She admits she had withheld from him information about her uncle which would have confirmed him as the murderer, but Jack already knows and accepts that she acted to protect her mother from unhappy shocking news.Together they resolve to keep Uncle Charlie's crimes a secret.

Tags: romantic, humor, murder, suspenseful

Review:
It is the purest example of murder in a "normal" setting, bringing the audience uncomfortably close to the killer, helped along with plenty of the grisly gallows humour that the Master loved.Hitch's British pictures had great charm and character, but they were often technically a little haphazard.
I own the Hitchcock collection (14 films in toto), and while this isn't my favourite of the bunch ('Psycho' is one of my favourite movies of all time, and 'Birds' never gets old), I like to watch it every now and again to remind myself what it means to make a "suspense film", and why Hitchcock was and always will be the master of this craft.To give away even the slightest story detail would ruin it for new viewers, because it is essential that everyone begin with the wrong impressions of the major characters.
"Shadow of a Doubt" may only be listed as #181 on IMDb's "Top 250" list, but in my opinion it far outweighs some of the films higher up on that list and is one of Hitch's very best films.Joseph Cotten plays Charlie, a crook on the run from the police.
Handsome and uncomplicated uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten)has come to visit his family in Santa Rosa, returning to home town after longer absence.
Of course, more time has passed since then, so the film can't help but be dated at present, although such a status is intriguing as it shines light on the values and mores of an earlier time in America, and as such, is instructive.The strong points of the film are obvious: very well shot and attractive looking flick, outstanding job by the very great Joseph Cotten, and Theresa Wright, usually a pretty limp and wan actress, puts forth the best performance of her career.
The film offers a charming glimpse of small town life in an America now long dead, and despite assertions by a poster that the wartime feel of the picture is absent, there are subtle but telling references to this off-screen catastrophic event (i.e., the presence of servicemen in at least two scenes, the notice in Oakley's brother-in-law's bank to Buy War Bonds and Stamps, Oakley's statements (in two scenes) that the world outside is evil, a "sty," and the Mother's insistence that the family "help the government" i.e., cooperate during wartime, when the two "surveyors" come to call).
And the little touches are great: Hitchcock's cameo, the brief bit with the waitress in the "Till Two" club, the assertions made by the clergyman at the family's after-speech party, the comic relief offered by the child actors.The weak points are glaring: doddering pacing and rather ill-focused editing, a pat and too-convenient explanation for Oakley's violent acts (i.e., head injury), a clumsy handling of the presumed budding romance between young Charlie and the detective, the needlessly dramatized episode of young Charlie in the library which supplies gratuitous suspense and tension that's hardly needed at that point in the picture, and a most contrived and implausible climax, albeit pretty harrowing if one exercises a suspension of disbelief.There are some plot holes that have been mentioned, and some others that have not.
What I found to be an odd episode in the film was young Charlie's near-fatal incident in the garage: despite the fact that she was almost killed, the rest of the family hurries off to Uncle Charlie's speaking engagement, leaving her home alone as if nothing more serious happened to her than a stubbed toe.All in all, viewing this film in a theater last night (the first time I had seen it in about 15 years), I was slightly disappointed in how it played and felt that it has not held up particularly well since my last viewing.
Pursued by the police, shifty Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) skips town to stay with his sister's family in tranquil Santa Rosa, but it's not long before his beautiful niece, Young Charlie (Teresa Wright), begins to suspect that the new house-guest is a right wrong'un.Shadow of a Doubt was apparently Hitchcock's favourite of all his own films, which I fail to understand: while many of the director's movies grab hold and don't let go till the end credits, this one took me several evenings to get through, which is indicative of just how mundane I found it.
Certain potentially interesting themes—the sexual tension between Charlie and her uncle and the notion of evil lurking unsuspected in American suburbia—amount to very little and the manner in which the film unfolds is surprisingly dull, the whole affair lacking Hitch's usual excellent pacing, masterful storytelling and visual flair.Wright is a delight to behold and Cotten makes for a genuinely creepy villain but overall I found the film to be far from Hitchcock's best work..
A young woman (Teresa Wright) discovers her visiting "Uncle Charlie" (Joseph Cotten) may not be the man he seems to be.This is classic Hitchcock, and one of Joseph Cotten's finest roles, which is quite a compliment considering how great Cotten is/was.
That is what Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 suspense thriller Shadow of a Doubt does so beautifully.In the quiet innocent town of Santa Rosa, California, terror is about to enter in the form of a man named Charlie.
There definitely is suspense in this movie but he doesn't use it as much like in Rope or Strangers on a Train where the suspense is built around the movie, this movie focuses on the fear of a person who you know is guilty of a crime but you keep refusing that it's true.Joseph Cotten, who is more well known for Orson Welles' movies like Citizen Kane or The Third Man, masterfully plays Uncle Charlie.
Santa Rosa is also the perfect town too, the perfect town where everyone is happy and the landscape is beautiful, unknown of the terror that'll take place.The other actors are also pretty good, but the guy that puts the most effort is Joseph Cotten.Alfred Hitchcock put a lot of effort into the movie and it shows.
And she can't find any supports from her parents played by former co-stars, from "Mrs. Miniver", Henry Travers, a banker, and from "The Little Foxes", Patricia Collinge as the devoted housewife.All these faces fit together and the actors are so natural we really believe this is a family, but there are many hints suggesting that each member tries to escape from a suffocating routine The mother is mentally rooted in the past and mourns her brother, Charlie whose absence had a profound effect on her well-being.
Narrative-wise, it's excellent because in a film where the bad guy is the main protagonist, Hitch knows we have to root for him a little, he manages to create the empathy by giving similar feelings to the good characters.So Hitchcock (who's all about signs) give us the ultimate sign of a deep bond between Charlie and Charlotte.
When we first see Uncle Charlie, played by the great Joseph Cotton, he's also lying in a bed in some lousy place in New Jersey, just like his niece.
Hitchcock, loved contrasts and the idea of sleazy evil coming to disturb the quiet peaceful town, something so impossible that no one would accept it, not even Charlotte, maybe not even us.It's a strange feeling because as soon as he comes, Uncle Charlie is like the touchstone of the family, such a natural charismatic character that we somewhat want the happiness to be maintained to this status quo.
The film gets actually more interesting once Charlotte knows, and has to digest the contrast between her idealization of her Uncle and what he really is, and it's such a startling contrast that she knows her mother mustn't know the secret, because it would kill her, it becomes a life-and-death situation.It also allows to cops not to arrest him in the house and so begins a psychological battle between the man-who-wants-to-stay and the girl-who-wants-him-to-leave and it naturally culminates with murder impulses from both sides.
And while the good triumphs over the evil, she's slightly contaminated by her Uncle's spirit, and might have her own shadow of a doubt regarding the goodness of human nature.While a masterpiece in its own terms, the film has a few little flaws but Hitch, and even us, viewers, keep on idealizing "Shadow of a Doubt", just like the family idealized Uncle Charlie, ignoring his darkest side.
With the clues pointing to Uncle Charlie being the Merry Widow Murderer, the relationship between the two breaks down in tension.I was attracted to Shadow of a Doubt by the presence of Joseph Cotten, an actor who's films I tend to enjoy on the whole - I was not aware that this was featured so highly on the imdb 250 chart and am quite surprised that it is.
The guts of the film is little Charlie's loss of innocence as she begins to suspect her uncle of being more than just the interesting man she thinks she knows; this aspect works pretty well as it gathers a good pace around this discovery - surprising considering we are never in doubt that Charlie is the killer.
"Shadow of a Doubt" was reputedly Alfred Hitchcock's favorite of his own films, and I guess that really must mean something since he directed more than three dozen of versatile cinematic classics that are all universally considered as brilliant.
Early in the film, Charlie is able to outwit two cops who try to follow himthe humor of the sequence is captured visually.Then comes the niece Charlie's young sister who does not take down the telegram because she cannot find a pencil without making much of an effort to find one.Then you have Charlie's mother shouting into the telephone mouthpiece, which leads her precocious daughter to remind her that she need not shout to be heard on the other end.Then comes the comment from the telegraph operator who cannot distinguish telepathy from telegraph.Uncle Charlie alights from the train with the aid of a walking stick but walks briskly soon after.
It's only after Hitchcock is released from Selznick's grasp that you see some of his truly great movies like Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Dial M for Murder, and Vertigo.So there's the history lesson why Shadow of a Doubt is not as good as other Hitchcocks.
But if you notice, at various points in the film, members of Young Charlie's family do have "shadows of a doubt" about Uncle Charlie.
The film is brilliant, starring actress Teresa Wright and actor Joseph Cotton in a tense, well-acted display of one man's hidden evil, in juxtaposition to a town's innate goodness.
"Shadow of a Doubt" is one of Hitchcock's best films, often overshadowed by famous but actually inferior pictures like "Notorious".
Teresa Wright's naiveté enhances and indeed makes possible the ethical conflict underlying the tension in the film and Joseph Cotten is very good as the creepy uncle.
Often overlooked for his later masterpieces, "Shadow of a Doubt," penned in part by Alma Reville (Hitchcock), is a brilliant, character-driven thriller that stars one of the great, also under-heralded, actresses of the time, Teresa Wright, paired fantastically with Joseph Cotton.
Set in filming location Santa Rosa, in the northern part of California that Hitchcock so loved, "Shadow of a Doubt" deftly captures both the innocence and dark crimes and deceptions of mid-twentieth century America.
Trouble is just behind him though, and it gets worse when his niece (also 'Charlie', named after him, and played by Teresa Wright) begins to suspect him of being the "Merry Widow Murderer".I considered a slightly higher rating, but thought the pace in the first half of the movie was a little slow.
On the other hand, there is a real small town feeling to this setting, helped in no doubt by Thornton Wilder being one of the screenwriters, and the characters of Charlie's father (Henry Travers) and his friend (Hume Cronyn) passing the time by talking about the perfect murder are absolutely priceless.
I've seen just over half of his films (around 25 or 30) so I know my fair share of some of his greatest films, and let me tell you this one sure was another!I noticed from the very start I was already hooked and wanted to know more about this mysterious man we see who is "Uncle Charlie".I have a really bad problem with quite a few of Hitch's films, films like "Topaz","Rebecca", "Marnie", "Spellbound" or even "Notorious" I felt were just way too slow, nothing interesting enough happens throughout to keep you interested, even the ending of those films sort of left me with the thought like "Okay?
One other final thing I would like to say is that the CAMERA WORK is PHENOMENAL, there are tons of interesting shots and they all feel like a lot of thought was put into each angle and shot, editing was great, and you really get a sense of what it was like back in those days.This is definitely in Hitchcock's top 10 films IMO, but films like Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window, Dial M For Murder are all better than this one for sure.
Sinister Joseph Cotten (as Charles "Uncle Charlie" Oakley) eludes some men in Philadelphia, then heads for Santa Rosa, California, where he plans an extended visit with adoring young niece Teresa Wright (as Charlotte "Charlie" Newton) and her family.
It is devoid of twists or needlessly flashy film-makingit just tells a story from beginning to the end, and all the while keeps you very entertained with great acting, dialog and various indescribable nuances.The story revolves around a family in a small California town (interesting note: the movie was made in 1943 yet there's no mention of the war.
Then, UNCLE Charlie comes to town (played magnificently by Joseph Cotton) because he wants "to settle down", but to the viewer it seems like he's running away from something.
There's a real creepiness to the character, and to the way Hitchcock lets darkness creep into the lovely small town where the film is set.
Shadow of a Doubt mayn't be my personal favourite of Hitchcock's movies, but it is in my opinion one of his most suspenseful and tense films evident from right at the beginning with the cloud of ominous black smoke.
It's cheeky bonus is having the central premise of its main protagonist being a hero of the people, his family adore him, he is on the surface a man that all men want to be, and it's here that Hitchcock molds a chilling filmic arc, in fact, it's a masterstroke.The plot involves Uncle Charlie returning to his adoring family in Santa Rosa after just avoiding capture for the murder of a widow.
Because make no bones about it, it's in itself bordering on being unhealthy, and it's something that helps make this a more edgier thriller than other genre pieces.Joseph Cotten is special as Uncle Charlie, his duality acting hits the spot on both fronts, whilst Teresa Wright is beguiling as the niece because she really makes the character infectious.
About the interpretations I have to say that I liked the interpretation of Joseph Cotten who played as Uncle Charlie and he was very good at it and also the interpretation of Teresa Wright who played as Young Charlie and she was equally good.Lastly I believe that "Shadow of a Doubt" is a good movie to watch with much of suspense but if I had to compare it with some of the other masterpieces of Alfred Hitchcock then I would say that this movie would be a little lower than the others.
And I brought you nightmares." The suspense in this movie isn't Uncle Charlie's dark past and what he'll do to avoid capture, but, in the context of 1943 America, it must have meant to be shocking that a nihilistic self-loathing man capable of murder without any qualms could be coming to a pleasant, picture-perfect small town USA.
What makes this film utterly interesting, is the ambiguity of the relationship of the two main protagonists, young Charlie (Teresa Wright) and her uncle Charles (Joseph Cotten).
Despite this criticism at least Hitchcock cast character actor Joseph Cotton as Uncle Charlie .
The Aforementioned "Two's" in the Film are a Good Example.This Film-Noir from Hitch is a Great One with Stunning Performances from Joseph Cotton and Teresa Wright Playing the Maiden who is about to be Symbolically Deflowered and the Veiled Innocence of Her Small Town Upbringing is On Display as, not only Family Secrets, but the oncoming World War would Hardened a lot of Hearts.The Movie is Not Without some Disappointments.
Effortlessly managing to endure the test of time, Shadow of a Doubt is a deftly crafted psychological thriller from Alfred Hitchcock that tells the story of a young girl & her relationship with her charming "Uncle Charlie" who might not be the man he actually seems to be.Brilliantly directed by Hitchcock who cleverly allows the doubts & uncertainties to creep into the viewers' minds from its opening moments and keeps us on our toes throughout its runtime, thanks to expert placements of twists & turns, Shadow of a Doubt presents the revered director in prime form & is his first indisputable masterpiece.The screenplay itself exhibits a tightly structured story, its scripted characters are homely, finely shaded & very believable, the moral complexity present in the film not only tests its characters but us viewers as well and the entire film is skilfully edited to deliver a cinematic experience that's incredibly tense & spine-chilling.Also benefiting the film are the stellar performances from its cast, its splendid score & its unusual take on the themes of love n evil.
So much."Charlie (Teresa Wright) is thrilled when her adored uncle (Joseph Cotten) comes to visit her family and shake her out of the malaise and monotony that she's been feeling.
I know nothing about Teresa Wright, but she is very good as Young Charlie, and the scenes between Henry Travers ('It's A Wonderful Life'), who plays her father, and his crime buff buddy Hume Cronyn (in his film debut) are priceless, but of course, Joseph Cotton as the charming but deadly Uncle Charlie steals the movie with a superb performance.