Shadow of a Doubt

Alfred Hitchcock's style as a director was a bit like a train – it ran perfectly well, but only along its own lines. He wasn't comfortable adapting his style to suit the material, but when the material suited his style he could do incredible things.

Three years and five pictures into his Hollywood career, Hitch had been having some trouble finding projects he was comfortable with. He had made a couple of adventure thrillers in the vein of his late 30s British films, but the old magic wasn't there. Finally, with Shadow of a Doubt he came upon a project that was right up his street. It represents a welcome return to the domestic murder dramas that had given him his earliest successes (The Lodger, Blackmail), with a storyline ideal for Hitchcock. 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. By now though he knows exactly how to use the camera to manipulate the audience. He begins by carrying us into the story, sweeping in over the city through scenery both pretty and ugly, to home in on an average looking neighbourhood. From then on, every shot, move and edit is calculated to keep up the suspense and unfold the plot. Whereas those early films were swamped and sometimes spoiled by showy camera tricks, Hitch now uses those techniques sparingly, like playing a trump card. For example, he has Joseph Cotton look directly into the camera for a brief moment as he snatches the newspaper back from Theresa Wright. Another trick is to have the camera dolly back as a character advances, only at a faster speed than the actor is moving, which gives a very dizzying effect.

Special mention should also be made of Dimitri Tiomkin's score. Tiomkin was the best composer Hitch worked with before Bernard Hermann, and one of the few who really understood how a Hitchcock film needs to be scored. His sparse string arrangements really capture that sense of spiralling terror without overpowering the scene and turning it into melodrama. He interpolates Franz Lehar's Merry Widow waltz at just the right level, making it noticeable but never overstated– throwing in just a bar or two at an opportune moment, sometimes disguising it in a minor key.

We also have a great cast lined up here. This is among Joseph Cotton's finest performances, which is unusual because Hitch was not a brilliant director of actors. I believe the reason is that, although his soft, honest features meant he usually played clean-cut good guys (as well as making him the perfect choice for the friendly uncle no-one would suspect), he was actually at his best when playing villains. That air of affected friendliness, which gives way to a deadpan monotone, is ironically far more convincing than when he attempted to play genuine niceness. Theresa Wright also does a brilliant job of handling her character's transition from childlike innocence to knowing cynicism. The icing on the cake is a couple of spot-on comic relief supporting parts from Henry Travers and Hume Cronyn.

It's quite appropriate that in his cameo for Shadow of a Doubt, Hitchcock is shown holding all the cards, because here he really did have all the elements working in his favour. It marks the beginning of his golden age and lays down the blueprint for such classics as Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. This is about as close to perfect as Hitchcock's pictures get.

The story of Shadow of a Doubt kept me on the edge of my seat, but I had a hard time accepting some of the actions (and reactions) of the characters. It also seemed to play its hand a little too early, and the big reveal didn't feel as shocking. Teresa Wright makes a wonderful protagonist, though, and I may never trust Joseph Cotten in any other role now.

"Shadow of a Doubt" was pivotal in Hitchcock's career as the first movie set in directors' Promised Land: America. And if I'm not sure that he held the film in higher regards than some later classics, I'm pretty sure though that the film was a sentimental favorite. And the word 'sentimental' is crucial as the underlying theme of "Shadow of a Doubt", is "when idealization meets deception" and we idealize a big deal in the name of sentimentality.

So sentimentality was a prevalent element of Hitch' premiere in America, he wanted the most American-looking location, one you couldn't tell in which state it was. The privilege went to Santa Rosa, a postcard little town of old fashion charm, with an obligatory library, train station, bank, all in one copy. Townspeople know each other by first name, from the priest to the brave overweight traffic cop. The town also neighbored some famous Californian vineyards, which made the shooting all the more interesting for Hitch and all.

If the sleepy little town could appeal to any outsider in quest of peace, some insiders would have a much different opinion. Charlotte, played by the sweet and talented Teresa Wright, nicknamed Charlie after her mother's brother but will be called Charlotte in this review for clarity's sake, doesn't feel exactly like a fish in water. When we first see her, she's lying on her bed, wondering how she can get off this unbearable heaviness of boredom. 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. The father shares a strange hobby with his friend Herb (Hume Cronyn in his debut) imagining the perfect crime as if they were about to write a crime novel. The precocious little sister Ann, is a bookworm, as indicated by her glasses, and doesn't indulge to child's activities, and the youngest child Roger enjoys counting steps between places. Unrealistic? I used to do the same thing as a child.

As usual, Hitch manages to create eccentric yet realistic characters, and Charlotte, the one person who had her feet on the ground decides to invite her Uncle. She learns that Uncle Charlie is coming to pay a visit after many years of absence. And it's not much the news that delights Charlotte, but the fact that she and her uncle had the same idea, she calls it telepathy, we call it idealization. We all feel a deep connection with the people we love and will find signs everywhere. And sneaky Hitch provides us the same signs, so we can also feel that bond. 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. But obviously, he has darker motives as suggested by the cops who try to arrest him. Uncle Charlie is a fugitive, a criminal whose record will be revealed progressively, but we're already ahead of Charlotte and her family. And the first visual sings of the titular shadow seem to be conveyed by the heavy cloud of gray smokes coming from the train, when Uncle Charlie arrives. 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. However, Uncle Charlie constantly throws hints to the face of Charlotte, and her resistance to face the truth takes its source from her admiration toward uncle. Before being a psychological battle, it's an internal one, and the whole first act is your typical Hitchcockian quest of a mysterious identity. 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 story leads us to its thrilling resolution, we discover deeper and darker aspects of the protagonists' personalities, confronting two visions of life: cheerful and optimistic and twisted and misanthropist, and Teresa Wright is as convincing in the positive as in the negative emotions. 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. It's part of human nature. The question is, do we idealize the film better for its good or for its dark side?

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. He is dark, misanthropic, misogynistic, and keeps you guessing. That is the beauty of this film: you will debate with yourself Charlie's true identity (maybe he really is who he says he is).

The film has a good deal of suspense, and solid performances from everyone involved. I do not think this is one of Hitchcock's most well-known films, and I am sorry about that. For me, it ranks above "Rebecca" in his catalog. Really a fine film and worth seeing again.

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. The characters are full-bodied. The performances are subtle and affected in all the right places. The exchanges between Henry Travers and Hume Cronyn are spectacular, black comedy gold. One of the few from Hitchcock that might rightfully fall under the category of film noir. 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. True suspense. This gem is not to be missed.