Shadow of a Doubt
by Alfred Hitchcock
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Henry Travers, Joseph Cotton, Macdonald Carey, Patricia Collinge, Teresa WrightDirector: Alfred Hitchcock
Brand: NBC Universal
Producer: Jack H. Skirball
Writer: Thornton Wilder
Writer: Alma Reville
Writer: Sally Benson
Writer: Gordon McDonell
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Black & White, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-07
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Shadow of a Doubt
Movie Review: Shadow Across an Innocent Age
Summary: 5 Stars
A film of subtleties and evil in plain sight, Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt is a slow moving character study of young "Charlie," the namesake niece of elegant but sinister uncle Charles. Formerly of Philadelphia, his visit to a younger sister in California is the kind of long visit by a relative everyone dreads in hindsight. Situated and contrasted by the light and seeming perfect American middle class small town of Petaluma, suave Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten) is all fine suits and manners of a bachelor gentleman.
Wholesome Theresa Wright is "Young Charlie," an average, and purposeless young woman whose guileless world has bored her by its failure to have meaning, although she is the cause. As a member of a family where everyone talks over one another without heeding, the kids prattle, the wife babbles, and the family's men persist in mindless discussions over how to plot a murder effectively as family dinner conversation, somehow this oddness is translated as the norm in Hitchcock's interpretation of small town America. It is a film of many dialogues, however, only one voice is audible without interruption: Uncle Charles. His dinner table monologue is most menacing as he describes the "useless, fat, women" who he sees as less than human and deserving of death. Until this moment, young Charlie had idolized her uncle until doubt is created by a detective played by MacDonald Cary. One of two detectives on a national hunt for the "Merry Widow" serial murderer, they have tracked the suspicious Uncle Charles across country to his unsuspecting sister's home and family. Once the seeds of doubt are sown, Charlie's dreamlike idealization of her perfect uncle and his world becomes shattered by her suspicion. Charlie no longer can fantasize about her dreamy uncle who she has erotic longings that can never be consummated. Once he realizes his charade is over, Uncle Charles rips away the curtain of sleepwalking in Charlie's perfect world with terrible consequence. The perfect world is not a nice place as Charlie's revelation is made all the more grusome through her uncle's warped eyes. As the evil grows more apparent, Charlie attempts to shield her storybook family by keeping them ignorant of his murderous past, but is it at a cost to her own happiness and life?
Hitchcock acknowledged the film was his personal favorite and it defines the notions of suspense, noir, and thriller without blood or visual carnage. A literate script by Thorton Wilder (Our Town) alludes to violence that is only suggested never seen. Through the physical presence of the brilliant character actor, Joseph Cotton (Citizen Kane, Portrait of Jennie), the menace and diabolic threat to the snow white, virginal Theresa Wright is alluded in eye, body language, and especially his hands. Sophisticated and cerebral, Hitch was playing with audiences creating a masterpiece of normalcy and idealized family values under a looming presence that cast a shadow of a doubt. Classic, for every suspense library.
Summary of Shadow of a Doubt
Joseph Cotton star as Uncle Charlie, a calculating and charming killer who hides out in his relatives' small hometown. There, he befriends his favorite niece and namesake, Young Charlie (Teresa Wright). But she begins to suspect he may be the famed Merry Widow murderer. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues as the psychopathic killer plots the death of his young niece to protect his secret. Starring: Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, MacDonald Carey, Patricia Collinge, Henry Travers, Wallace Ford, Hume Cronyn, Edna May Wonacott, Charles Bates Directed by: Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock considered this 1943 thriller to be his personal favorite among his own films, and although it's not as popular as some of Hitchcock's later work, it's certainly worthy of the master's admiration. Scripted by playwright Thornton Wilder and inspired by the actual case of a 1920's serial killer known as "The Merry Widow Murderer," the movie sets a tone of menace and fear by introducing a psychotic killer into the small-town comforts of Santa Rosa, California. That's where young Charlie (Teresa Wright) lives with her parents and two younger siblings, and where murder is little more than a topic of morbid conversation for their mystery-buff neighbor (Hume Cronyn). Charlie was named after her favorite uncle, who has just arrived for an extended visit, and at first Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) gets along famously with his admiring niece. But the film's chilling prologue has already revealed Uncle Charlie's true identity as the notorious Merry Widow Murderer, and the suspense grows almost unbearable when young Charlie's trust gives way to gradual dread and suspicion. Through narrow escapes and a climactic scene aboard a speeding train, this witty thriller strips away the façade of small-town tranquility to reveal evil where it's least expected. And, of course, it's all done in pure Hitchcockian style. --Jeff Shannon
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