Rating: 
Summary: DARK SHADOWS IN SANTA ROSA
Review: Many people are surprised that this little gem is actually regarded by many critics as Alfred Hitchcock's best American film! In the sleepy setting of 1943 Santa Rosa, California, Charley Oakley pays a visit to his sister Emmy and her family. While in Santa Rosa, Charley at first seems to be a personable and successful individual, but he seems unreasonably upset when he thinks people are trying to find out about him...........The film portrays throughout the theme of affinity between Uncle Charley and his namesake neice played by Teresa Wright. Great is the scene where the neice races to the public library in order to find a missing clue in the newspaper. Joseph Cotton and Teresa Wright contribute excellent performances which give vitality to the conception of their like yet opposite personalities. Emmy is excellently portrayed by the wonderful Irish stage actress Patricia Collinge ( you just know it would kill her soul if she knew the truth about her little brother! ) Macdonald Carey was never much of an actor, but here he seems real and genuine as the man who looking for Oakley while falling in love with his neice in the process. A local girl was chosen by Hitch to play the younger sister and if she was told to be irritating, boy, did she succeed! Cotton is able to convey the surface charm which almost cover the menace within, and Wright convincingly shows us a naive young woman who finds herself in a situation she could not imagine - much less suspect. SHADOW OF A DOUBT is vintage Hitchcock from the overall conception to the smallest detail, the imprint of this master filmmaker is evident.
Rating:
Summary: Hitchcok!!!!!!
Review: There is soo much depth in this movie it's not even funny. At times it seems a bit corny(Mother and Little Charlie) but the irony between the Uncle and the Family flip flop the happy corny scenes in ways that effect and that magnify the darker ones. Very misunderstood by many poeple. It requires many viewings. I actually shed a tear when Charlie was crying on the Porch, and I'm an 18 year old man. And I was watching it alone
Rating: 
Summary: Average Hitchcock lifted by Thornton Wilder
Review: Wilder was one of the scriptwriters for this, and I can't help but think he was the man responsible for Uncle Charlie's excellent barroom rant against the pestilence of life and the world. But this isn't Our Town: Teresa Wright as a strangely self-absorbed daughter of a curious Santa Rosa family came off as strained and bizarre, nearly as bizarre as her uncle. Maybe I'm cursed by modern sensibilities, but I couldn't help catching a sexual overtone to her fascination with her uncle, a fascination only compensated by the detective's--the very man hunting her uncle--seduction of her. Joseph Cotten made a lukewarm villain; I love his voice, but he needs the kind of role The Third Man gave him. All in all, a well-written melodrama, but not much to signify Hitchcock's immense talent.
Rating:
Summary: Underrated Hitchcock Classic
Review: Somewhat reminiscent of Orson Welles' The Stranger (1946), Shadow of a Doubt is a superior film about evil in the most unexpected places and the bottomless human capacity for denial. This seems somehow fitting since Welles directed Joseph Cotten to such acclaim in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), also a box office disappointment, and both give such excellent performances in Carole Reed's masterful The Third Man (1949).In Shadow of a Doubt, Cotten plays Charlie Oakley, a widow murderer hiding from the authorities in his sister's pleasant suburban home. (In The Stranger, Welles plays a Nazi hiding from the authorities in another pleasant American suburb.) Just about everyone--but especially Charlie's adoring namesake niece Charlie (Teresa Wright)--is seduced by his charm and good looks and thinks he's an upstanding citizen. But looks can be deceiving. The dinner table speech Cotten gives towards the end of the film is the essence of pure evil. It rivals the speech Welles gives to Cotten on the merry-go-round in The Third Man (and James Mason's "God was wrong" speech in Larger Than Life) as one of the most chilling in cinematic history. It's more subtle, but just as insidious. And you'll never hear "The Merry Widow Waltz" the same way again! The script was co-written by Aldred Hitchcock and Thornton Wilder (Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth). Although it's long been long assumed that Shadow of a Doubt was Hitchcock's personal favorite, this is not correct. He disputes the claim in Francois Truffaut's "Hitchcock" (the definitive text for Hitchcock enthusiasts). He does say, however, that the impression may be "due to my very pleasant memories of working on it with Thornton Wilder...it was so gratifying for me to find out that one of America's most eminent playwrights was willing to work with me, and indeed, that he took the whole thing quite seriously." Hume Cronyn and Henry Travers (Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life) provide excellent support. Cronyn would appear in Hitchcock's next film, Lifeboat, also released in 1943. Shadow of a Doubt was a stellar effort from all involved. If it failed to find its audience the first time around, time has elevated the film--much like Welles' Touch of Evil (1958)--to the deserved status of classic.
Rating:
Summary: no from below
Review: SHADOW OF A DOUBT is a wonderful movie using one of Hitchcock's favorite themes: "evil" or danger in the most unexpected places, here, the small town of Santa Rosa. Joseph Cotton is great as the disturbed Uncle Charlie with a strange relationship with his niece, Charlie(wonderfully played by Teresa Wright- she is so *pretty* hehe) Anyway, back to the review, Joseph Cotton gives Uncle Charlie an understandable psychotic view of the world, while Wright's character gives her Uncle humanity- but soon, Young Charlie is exposed to the world of madness when she is forces to take action against her Uncle... With Uncle Charlie's sweet sister and the taunting Merry Widow Waltz, this haunting film is pure masterpiece. Cotton is great and Wright is wondeful, giving her character innocence, homeliness, and also a struggling girl going against the dark world. Uhh... where was I? Oh yes, I recommend this to EVERYONE!
Rating: 
Summary: It is a ENCORE
Review: This is a ENCORE a beloved Uncle from the busy town of Philadelpha out to a small town of Sanarosea Calafornia out in the country and is trying to cover up that he is the merry widow murder, soon aafter his beloved Charlie finds out by two agents that are agenst him who flowed him out into the country thin Charlie fears her uncle greatly but the reason I gave it a 4 is because (not trying to burst anyones bubble) the ending is a little diffent thin I thout. But buy it no Alferd coll is not commplet with out it. Thanks for reaading.
Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing!
Review: This classis, somewhat obscure Hitchcock film proves once again what a masterful storyteller he was. Teresa Wright is her usual endearing, charming, adorable self who begin to suspect her beloved "Uncle Charly" may be a ruthless serial killer. One may start out watching thinking this movie is "corny" but as the story unfolds, you are pulled into the magistery of what great film making is, or should be, all about. As an antique lover, I found that the the sets and Joseph Cotton's wardrobe are truly magnificant. The acting, especially Hume Cronyn in his film debut, is second to none. Joseph Cotton alternates between charming and sininster in one of the greatest performances on film. Clarence the angel, from "It's A Wonderful Life" plays the dad and everyone else is cast with absolute perfection. Do yourself a favor and rent this film, sans commercial interuption, and prepare to watch one of the classic films from the 1940's. I love this movie!!!!
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Summary: Hitchcock's Underappreciated Best
Review: Will not leave a shadow of a doubt in your mind that it is one of Hitchcock's greatest, though it may not readily come to mind when his classic are discussed. This gem is both a knowing commentary on post-World War America, an innocent time slowly coming to terms with the evil in its midst, and a chilling (though probably unwitting) foreshadowing of things to come. The wholesome family life of the Newtons in one of the last sleepy towns in California, the final American frontier, hums along while Uncle Charlie's insidiousness slowly takes root, aided by the initial adoration of Charlie, his niece and psychic twin. The two eventually play out the enduring, mortal struggle between good and evil, but the ending is neither as clean and tidy as we'd like it to be in life nor as it was beginning to be in movies.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing thriller!
Review: As an avid Hitchcock fan since my first viewing of "Rear Window", I thought I'd seen all his best ones - until last night. I watched "Shadow of a Doubt" for the first time and realized why I love Hitchcock's stuff so much! His every story seems to give you one genuinely innocent person to cheer for who continually gets into one bad situation after another. This movie is no different! It grabs you from the beginning and takes off in a hurry! The tension builds slowly from the first few minutes of the family's first dinner together and then goes into overtime at the end. By the time Charley starts falling victim to several "accidents" from her Uncle's hand, you know you aren't going anywhere until it's all over. There are far too many plot twists and grabbers here to mention. Suffice it to say that this is vintage Hitchcock, and it easily goes into his top 5 movies.
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.
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