MOVIE REVIEW: Shadow of a Doubt

Alfred Hitchcock explores a dark secret in small town America.

Alan Herrmann
MOVIE CRITIC

Alfred Hitchcock spent roughly twenty years making films in his native Britain before he “crossed the pond” to direct movies in Hollywood in 1940.

Even then, his first movie for David O. Selznick was the classic British mystery Rebecca from a novel by British author Daphne Du Maurier that takes place mostly in the British countryside, with a mostly British cast including the quintessential British actor, Laurence Olivier. He was able to shoot this very British movie with some clever location shots of the California coast doubling for cliffs in Cornwall, England.  

Rebecca was a huge success, as was Foreign Correspondent, an espionage thriller that takes place in Europe but was shot in Hollywood. Other films followed with American casts and story lines, but Hitchcock’s first truly American film came in 1943 with the release of Shadow of a Doubt, a movie the director considered his personal favorite. It is, in a sense, Hitchcock’s love letter to America. 

The story of Shadow of a Doubt was inspired by real life 1920’s murderer Earle Leonard Nelson, who killed and raped over 20 women throughout the United States, many in small towns. Hitchcock enlisted the help of several writers to craft a script, but the majority of the writing came from Thornton Wilder, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Our Town.

Hitchcock had seen the play and loved the strong, small town, family-driven drama. He wanted that same tone for his film. His vision was to have an all-American family living in a typical small town that exhibits all the charm and warmth of a Norman Rockwell illustration – except for the fact that a killer lurks amongst them. He chose Santa Rosa, California, to shoot the majority of the film. 

Hitchcock cast several local residents in the movie to lend authenticity and reinforce the friendly, safe, and charming community inhabited by the Newton family. Banker Joseph, wife Emma, daughters Charlie and Ann, and son Roger are perfect Wilderesque characters. Joe Newton, the pipe smoking, good natured patriarch of the family is played by Henry Travers, best known for his role as Clarence the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life. Patricia Collinge plays Emma, who Hitchcock liked because she reminded him of his mother who was very ill back in England. The two younger children are Ann, precocious and never without a book, and Roger, a tyke who just goes with the flow. 

Then there is young Charlie, the real emotional center of the family, and the film, played by Teresa Wright who had just won an Oscar for best supporting actress in Mrs. Miniver.

Charlie is frustrated and bored with her family’s everyday ho-hum existence and yearns for some sort of excitement to bring her family out of its emotional deficit. Enter Uncle Charlie – young Charlie’s namesake and kindred spirit, and Emma’s charming and mysterious younger brother – who travels to Santa Rosa on a spur of the moment decision to come stay with the Newtons. Young Charlie is ecstatic and the family scurries about getting things in order for Uncle Charlie’s extended visit. 

To be clear, we the audience are a step ahead of the Newton family because we already know from the opening shots that Uncle Charlie is suspected of being the ‘Merry Widow Killer.’  This is not a “who done it” but a “when will they get wise to it” – a favorite Hitchcock device. We know what this killer is capable of, and we fear for the small town where violence is not part of their world.  

Joseph Cotton plays Charles Oakley – Uncle Charlie – the charming yet cynical and emotionally unbalanced killer who wants nothing more than to evade capture by the police while masquerading as a wealthy businessman. He is looking to invest time and money in the town of his beloved sister and her family.

But bit by bit, disturbing clues threaten to peel away the veneer of the peaceful household. Charles secretly hides or destroys evidence that connects him to the crimes, but Charlie begins to notice erratic behavior and outbursts from her uncle. She discovers possible evidence of his crimes that he tries to explain away, but her suspicions and distrust only grow. Charlie struggles with whether or not to turn him in because of what it might do to her mother.  

Hitchcock ramps up the suspense after Charlie confronts her uncle with her knowledge of his deeds, and he responds by trying to kill her in a couple of misfired “accidents.” Charlie is finally able to convince her uncle to leave Santa Rosa, but he meets his demise while his train is leaving the station. Hitchcock once again reminds us of the sensitivity of the town residents by giving Charles a respectable funeral, where his true identity is kept a secret by law officers and by Charlie. Emma, ignorant of the truth, is heartbroken over the loss of her brother, but Santa Rosa is safe, Charlie is safe, and her family is not tainted by scandal.  

Hitchcock would go on to make several more movies over the next three decades that take place and are filmed in various countries, but the majority of his best work – Spellbound, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, and Psycho – are decidedly American movies. Many of these films have characters traveling to several locales, often major cities like New York or San Francisco, but the uniqueness of Shadow of a Doubt is that the majority of the film is shot in an authentic small town, Santa Rosa, which makes it a character itself. A small, American town that holds a deadly secret never revealed to its blissfully unaware residents. 

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