Shadow of a Doubt

Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock's favorite, not mine
Review: Hitchcock's favorite of all his films is not one of his best, but still better than almost any suspense film around today. Joseph Cotton is excellent as Uncle Charlie, aka "The Merry Widow Killer," and Hume Cronyn shines as a childlike mystery buff blissfully unaware that there's a notorious murderer in his presence. This is more of a character study than a suspense film, however, and therefore a change of pace for the director. The character being studied is not so much Uncle Charlie or his adoring niece (the perky Teresa Wright), but small town life in general, and how evil can grow in the most innocent of gardens.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Movie...
Review: As a collector of Alfred Hitchcock movies I would rate this movie right up there among his better movies. I like the nostalgic feel and the menace building from such an innocent day and age and the small town and the dotting niece who comes do know just what good old uncle is really all about. Well worth your time.

Rating:
Summary: Superb!
Review: "Shadow of a Doubt" is nothing short of chilling. The story itself is very disturbing. It's about a family in a peaceful, small town, who are excited about a visit from their favorite relative. However, "Uncle Charlie" turns out to be the notorious "Merry Widow Murderer". The characters a smart and deep, the dialouge is witty, and the suspense creschendos right up the the nail-biting climax. The film is also a disturbing look at morality and values in the life of a working class family. This is a thriller that will haunt you forever, trust me. Just as potent, if not more, than any modern thriller. One of my favorite films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Rating:
Summary: how things are not always how they seem
Review: Shadow of a doubt, staring Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright is about how things are not always how they seem. A young girl, played by Teresa Wright, has always thought highly of her uncle Charley. Lately She believes that he had been hidding something and she slowly comes to realize that her beloved uncle is the merry widow murderer! She is unsure if she should turn him into the police or just tell him to leave, but she decides on the later so that the police do not kill him. Soon her Uncles obsession becomes worse as he repetitively attempts to kill her. This movie has some up and downs in it. On one hand you have a classic mystery movie by Alfred Hitchcock, well that is IF you can stay awake. I recommend only the movie freaks (with includes me) see this to observe Alfred's talent. I love his use of camera angels for the feelings of the actors. And don't forget to look for him in his comeo appearance, which he makes in all of is movies. Hint: he is one of the passengers on the train and he is playing poker with a flush in his hand. This film was shot in my home town, Santa Rosa and I drive by the house it was filmed in often which makes me feel famous (it's just a little handicap I have, don't let it affect you). Please E-mail me if you have seen this movie or read my review. thank you ~[e-mail]~

Rating:
Summary: IN RETROSPECT, ONE OF THE BEST EVER
Review: To say Hitch's "Shadow of a Doubt" is a great film would be fair; but in all honesty, looking back on the films (hundreds by now, maybe thousands) I've seen, there are few that have left such an indelible impression on me.

By now, everyone knows the story of Uncle Charlie and his adoring niece and how she slowly uncovers the truth behind her mysterious uncle's past.

What's brilliant about this movie is the way it foreshadowed and still influences movies today. Think of "Blue Velvet" and its portrayal of the naive small town boy uncovering a secret to his sleepy little town. Or even "The Third Man" just a few years later where, ironically, Joseph Cotton finds the truth about his best friend, Orson Welles.

What makes this film endure is its theme: The loss of innocence. the innocence of Teresa Wright's adoring neice (watch the brilliant scene in the bar where she sits down with Joseph Cotton), the innocence of Charlie's family and of course, the innocence of Santa Rosa itself.

Perhaps Hitchcock and Thornton Wilder were prophetic in the way they mapped out the loss of America's innocence especially after the war. (the film was released around then). Look at our society now and how everything has changed. The 50's were looked upon as the decade we lost our innocence (Some even point far later to the Vietnam war as the period that ended it) but Hitchcock back in the 40's was saying that everything was not all right, and that bad things just didn't happen in dark alleys and dark houses, that it could happen on the sunniest of days and in most Apple Pie, White picket fence homes.

And then, of course, is the equally superb and brilliantly understated ending where Joseph Cotton's Uncle Charlie is being mourned in his death as a hero is equal parts chilling and darkly amusing. Hitch's point? That we still live in denial, that we may need people like Teresa Wright's Charlie to keep the lie hidden, because we aren't able to look at ourselves in the mirror and see that dark side and embrace it.

No wonder this film was Hitch's fave. Hitch loved to explore the dark side of the everyman (or every woman) and along with Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Rear Window and Psycho, they form a collection of films that perfectly dissects the human condition and this theme.

A truly great film worth watching over and over.

Rating:
Summary: What a Film!!!
Review: It is sad that Santa Rosa, Ca. doesn't look like this today,but this film almost foretells the waiting, looming changes that we were about to face in our land, both to our lifestyle and our environment. Never more relevant than now.Hitchcock captured the essence of a wonderful and, now, nostalgic time in America as no one else, before or after.

Rating:
Summary: Truth In Shadow.
Review: SHADOW OF A DOUBT is a superb film and an excellent place to begin for anyone who really wants to deepen their understanding of Hitchcock's film art. A good grasp of this film will help you better think about, explore and appreciate Hitchcock's later great films.
Before looking directly at this film, I would like to note that it is characterized by two ironically paired elements that are in fact key traits of Hitchcock's approach to film making: First, it has many touches that give it a probable surface appeal to ordinary entertainment-seeking film viewers who can accept an emotional and moral challenge in a film as long as there is some more or less positive resolution of this challenge at the conclusion of the film. This surface tends to be a somewhat shallow structural device for the film; Second, the dynamic core of the film is actually very richly ambiguous and even ominous and part of its ambiguity lies precisely in whether or not the surface structure of the film really does resolve the nightmarish challenge at its core. Part of what gives Hitchcock's best films their remarkable power is precisely the way he balances these two contradicting elements. So, to the film itself:
The opening sequence of the film that introduces us to Uncle Charles is extremely important. It tells us things about the film and about Charles that are indispensable for an understanding of both. First, it is important to see that Hitchcock does not, as he well might have, make us discover the truth about Charles as a gradual shocking surprise through the eyes of his niece Charlotte, called Charlie. We know from the beginning that Charles is not what Charlie thinks he is. Therefore, we are not meant to identify with Charlie, but rather to observe her just as we are meant to observe Charles. The irony and ambiguity here is that Charles seems on the surface so clearly `bad' and Charlie seems so clearly `good'. So why are we not led to identify with Charlie? Because the issue of `good people' and `bad people', though it seems to be, is not what the film is about. It is about the frighteningly deep ambiguity that makes up any human being and the human condition. Though Uncle Charles is the `heavy', the villain, he is also the most conscious and aware character in the film and the fact that he is a murderer in spite of his awareness only adds to the depth of his ambiguity. Though he seems to be, he is anything but a black and white `bad guy'. Please note that in this introductory sequence we are shown that Charles has an innate human charm as is shown by the way his landlady sympathizes with him and wants to help him. And we are also shown that Charles cares nothing about the money he has stolen from the widows he murdered which he just leaves lying on the floor where he dropped it. So why does he do what he does? What really motivates him?

When the film then introduces us to the winsome, typical little American town of Santa Rosa, we approach it from outside where the scenery is not so charming or comforting or seemingly innocent. Santa Rosa is a glistening, delightful little bubble drifting in a darkness that it has no comprehension of. Then amazingly, when we are introduced to Charlie we find her lying on the bed, brooding, exactly as we first found Charles. Then, so there is no mistaking what it means, we observe Charlie having a sort of telepathic experience with Charles which delights her and the very idea of which offends the so very normal lady working at the post office. Then we hear Charlie insist that she and Charles are "twins" of an inner sort. She feels so close to Charles that just the thought of him delights her. Charlie is genuinely feeling very empty, unsatisfied, unfulfilled in her little town and when she learns that Charles is coming to stay with them she feels a happiness that amounts to a sort of self-realization and fulfilment. And indeed it proves to be a sort of self-realization, but not the sort she hoped for. ( Please note the great, monstrous shadow that falls across the little boy when the train carrying Charles pulls into the station.) Then the bulk of the film is the slow awful realizing by Charlie that her darling Uncle is not what she thinks he is but, in fact, a walking nightmare. And yet it remains clear that he is deeply related to Charlie in some mysterious way that she must become conscious of in order to really grow beyond the too narrow boundaries of her little town-world. The question at the end of the film is: Can she do it? Or will it all just pass like some meaningless bad dream? Or just like some fictional Hollywood movie with a happy ending?

Rating:
Summary: Understated but excellent
Review: One of Hitchcock's quieter and more understated movies, but a charming and intriguing one. The suspense throughout is nicely measured, slowly and surely keeping you on the edge of your seat. Joseph Cotton is marvellously villanious as Uncle Charlie and Teresa Wright is great as younger niece Charlie. The supporting cast is fantastic too, especially the actress who plays percocious little Anne the bookworm and the actor who plays the father: the expressions on his face at various points in the movie are hilarious. All in all, not the most famous Hitchcock - but nevertheless one of the best, and can certainly hold its own against the master's more well-known works.


Rating:
Summary: A Monster Lives Among Us
Review: Shadow of a Doubt was Alfred Hitchcock's favorite among all his films. It's easy to see why. Shadow of a Doubt shows how we can have monsters living among us -- monsters who may be the people we love and care for the most. The great Joseph Cotten -- one of the most underrated actors of all time -- plays Uncle Charlie with great, seething menace and yet shows such charm and likability on the surface that we can see why his family loves him. It was rare to see such a portrait of such unrepentant evil on film during that time. But in "Shadow," Hitchcock unhesitatingly shows that even in the most genial, friendly atmosphere, pure evil can survive and even flourish. Cotten's Uncle Charlie is a serial killer, but is able to win the entire town of Santa Rosa over with his charm and shows just how frighteningly easy it is for the devil to live among us. The story resonates even more now since the world has been exposed to people like Ed Gein, Charles Whitman, John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz and Jeffrey Dahmer -- people whose seeming normality masked unimaginable evil. It's a Hitchcock masterpiece that only gets better and more timley with age.

Rating:
Summary: One of Hitchcock's Greatest Films
Review: Shadow of a Doubt is my favorite Hitchock movie. Among the reasons why I like it...

--Theresa Wright gave an extraordinary performance as Young Charlie, immensely sympathetic and appealing. I rate hers as the best acting job by a female lead in any of Hitchock's films, including those by Bergman, Kelly, et al.
--It was a perfect role for Cotten, an actor I like, who had charm, attractiveness, but to me always seemed a little weak. I thought the role, however psychopathic, suited his personality.
--The murder by-play at the family dinner table was great fun and played off Uncle Charlie's real murderousness.
--The slowly building knowledge that Young Charlie was realizing the truth about the uncle she idolized and the knowledge that no one would believe her.
--The slowly building realization that despite the affection Uncle Charlie had for Young Charlie, he probably was going to do her harm.
--The affection that Hitchcock shows toward comfortable small town America. It's an idealization, but without condescension. And because he plays it straight, he makes Uncle Charlie's philosophy of life seem all the more unsettling.
--The script was, I think, one of the best written and tightest Hitchcock ever worked with.

There's no mystery. We know Uncle Charlie is a killer. The movie is about how Young Charlie and Uncle Charlie are going to resolve their problem as they circle around each other. Hitchcock creates an increasingly unsettling atmosphere, using gentle humor as a foil, and with a person, Young Charlie, it's easy to care about.

The DVD transfer is very good.