Shadow of a Doubt

This nifty noir drama is one of our favourite Hitchcock films, and perhaps the most unheralded of the great director’s major masterpieces. A dark, disturbing dissection of small-town, white-picket-fence America (and something of a 1940s precursor to David Lynch’s Blue Velvet), Shadow of a Doubt is set in the sleepy Californian community of Santa Rosa, and pivots on the unusually close bond between young Charlie (Teresa Wright) and her beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), the suave, urbane younger brother of her mother. Uncle Charlie’s extended visit home is welcomed by niece Charlie as an exciting reprieve from the exasperating boredom of her American-as-apple-pie family. To her growing horror, however, she begins to suspect that her darling uncle may be the man responsible for the “Merry Widow murders,” a series of grisly slayings committed back East. Carefully crafted, well observed, subtle, understated, suspenseful, and subversive, Shadow of a Doubt is said to have been Hitchcock’s own favourite among his American films. Our Town playwright Thornton Wilder collaborated on the screenplay. B&W, 35mm. 108 mins.