Shadow of a Doubt (1943, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, US) by Patrick McElroy
When people mention their favorite movies from Alfred Hitchcock, they normally mention some of the greatest and most iconic movies of all time such as Rear Window, Vertigo, North By Northwest, and Psycho. But one of his very best films that often gets overlooked in his expansive body of work is his 1943 thriller Shadow of a Doubt, which turns 80 this month.
The film stars Joseph Cotten as Charlie Oakley, a handsome all American looking bachelor who resides in New Jersey. When escaping some suspicious men for unknown reasons for the audience at that point, he goes to stay with his sister’s family in the small wholesome town of Santa Rosa, California. When arriving there, he finds a strange connection with his teenage niece Charlotte (Teresa Wright) who also goes by Charlie.
While others in the family and the town are taken in by the charms of uncle Charlie, Charlotte begins to suspect something in him. What Hitchcock explores in this film is something David Lynch would later explore in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. That would be the Norman Rockwell style Americana of a small town, but the darkness and perversity that lies beneath it, and that’s also represented through the character of Uncle Charlie.
At the time America was coming out of the optimism of the Great Depression, and was two years away from the end of WWII. In the years following World War II, and particularly in the 50s, is when American movies would do this form of unmasking, whether it was Elia Kazan, Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller, or Anthony Mann, the country didn’t have the same innocent look it once had. I think part of this would come from the fact that Hitchcock himself was an immigrant, similar to Billy Wilder who viewed America as an observer.
One could write an entire book on the style and technique of Hitchcock, so a single piece couldn’t do justice to it, but in this film, he has some of the best designed shots of his career. One of the best scenes in the film is when Uncle Charlie takes Charlotte out to a bar, and they’re sitting across from each other at the table. The edits and the composition that he makes during this conversation is one of the best planned sequences, because it isn’t the typical wide shot, medium shot, close up of other movies.
Martin Scorsese has stated that watching conversation sequences in Hitchcock films are sometimes more intriguing then the actual big set pieces. They almost work in themselves as a film school within the movie. Joseph Cotten I find to be one of the most underrated and greatest actors of Hollywood’s golden age. Any time he’s on screen, whether it’s his supporting performances in Citizen Kane, or Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, or his leading roles in The Magnificent Ambersons, or The Third Man, he always draws you in. He has an ordinary look, but also a sinister edge, and while he was well respected, he never quite made it as one of the top stars, so he always gets overlooked.
Teresa Wright also gives a performance that counterbalances his, she has a sweet American girl look that she brought to William Wyler‘s film such as her Oscar winning turn in Mrs. Miniver, or The Best Years of Our Lives. But here she brings some a little humor to it, particularly in an early seen when her parents are talking to her about her lack of ambition, which holds up well several decades later, because we live in a country now with more unambitious young people.
Of all the movies Hitchcock made, this was his own personal favorite, he felt he fulfilled what he attempted at two years earlier with Suspicion. It was also the first time he had filmed in Northern California, a place that was dear to him, and he would go on to film a few more movies there later in his career. Hitchcock has one of the greatest bodies of work, that achieved as many great films, as few directors have, and this film is no exception.
Patrick McElroy is a movie writer and movie lover based in Los Angeles. Check out his other writing at: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.mcelroy.3726 or his IG: @mcelroy.patrick