Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson and Alma Reville. It stars Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, MacDonald Carey, Patricia Collinge, Henry Travers and Hume Cronyn.
Shadow of a Doubt was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story, Gordon McDonell. In 1991, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In his book Bambi vs. Godzilla, David Mamet calls it Hitchcock's finest film. Hitchcock sometimes told interviewers that the film was his personal favorite among his American films.
Plot
A bored young woman, a teen living in Santa Rosa, California, Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Wright), is frustrated because nothing seems to be happening in her life and that of her family. Then, she receives wonderful news: her uncle (for whom she was named), Charlie Oakley (Cotten), her mother's brother, is arriving for a visit.
Two men show up pretending to be photographers and journalists working on a national survey of the average American family. One of them speaks to Charlie privately, identifying himself as Detective Jack Graham (Macdonald Carey) and telling her that her uncle is one of two men who are suspected of being a serial killer known as the "Merry Widow Murderer". This murderer has a modus operandi of seducing, murdering and robbing wealthy widows.
Young Charlie at first refuses to even consider that her uncle could be a murderer, but she cannot help noticing him acting strangely on several occasions. Particularly chilling is a family dinner conversation during which Uncle Charlie reveals his hatred of rich widows, comparing them to fat animals deserving of slaughter.
Young Charlie's growing suspicion soon becomes apparent to her uncle. He confronts her and admits that he is indeed the man the police are after. He begs her for help; she reluctantly agrees not to say anything, as long as he leaves soon, to avoid a horrible scandal in the town that would destroy her family, especially her mother, who idolizes her younger brother.
Then news breaks that the second suspect was killed fleeing from the police in Portland, Maine, and is assumed to have been the guilty one. The detective Graham leaves after telling Young Charlie that he loves her and would like to marry her someday. Uncle Charlie is satisfied at first, until he remembers that Young Charlie fully knows his secret. Soon, the young woman has a couple of near fatal "accidents," falling down some very steep stairs, and being trapped in a closed garage with a car spewing exhaust fumes.
Uncle Charlie soon announces that he is leaving by train for San Francisco. As he departs, he forces young Charlie to stay on board, planning to kill her by pushing her off as soon as the train gets up to speed. Instead, in the ensuing struggle between them, he falls into the path of an oncoming train. At his funeral Uncle Charlie is highly honored by the townspeople of Santa Rosa, who know nothing of his crimes. Jack has come back to comfort Charlie; she tells him she had withheld from him information about her uncle which would have confirmed him as the murderer, but Jack already knows and accepts that, realizing her difficult situation. They become a couple, and resolve to keep Uncle Charlie's crimes a secret.
Background
Shadow of a Doubt was both filmed and set in Santa Rosa, California, which was portrayed as a paragon of a supposedly peaceful, small, pre-War American city. Since Thornton Wilder wrote the original script, the story is set in a small American town, a popular setting of Wilder, but with an added Hitchcock touch to it. In Patrick McGilligan's biography of Hitchcock he said the film was perhaps the most American film that Hitchcock had made up to that time.
The opening scenes take place in the Central Ward of Newark, New Jersey. The city skyline and landmarks such as the Pulaski Skyway are featured in the opening shot.
The Newton family home is located at 904 McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa, California. McDonald Avenue is named for the McDonald Mansion, built by Mark L. McDonald in 1879, and situated on several acres on the street. The McDonald Mansion was later used by Walt Disney for the movie Pollyanna. The stone train station in the film was built in 1904 and is one of the few commercial buildings in downtown Santa Rosa to survive the earthquake of April 18, 1906. Built for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, it is currently a visitor center. Some of the buildings in downtown Santa Rosa that are seen in the film were damaged or destroyed by earthquakes in 1969; much of the area was cleared of debris and largely rebuilt. The library was a Carnegie Library that was demolished as a result of the 1969 earthquakes, which had made it structurally unsafe. Some of the hand carved stones from the demolished library make up a small stone fence encircling the Comstock Mansion on Mendocino Avenue. The old City Hall, located in the center of town, was built of marble and also demolished after the earthquakes because it was also thought to be structurally unsafe. When it was demolished, the demolition company that contracted the job went bankrupt trying to knock the building down.
The film was scored by Dimitri Tiomkin, his first collaboration with Hitchcock (the others being Strangers on a Train", "I Confess and Dial M for Murder"). In his score Tiomkin quotes the famous Merry Widow Waltz of Franz Lehár, often in somewhat distorted forms, as a leitmotif for Uncle Charlie and his serial murders. During the opening credits the waltz theme is heard along with a prolonged shot of couples dancing.
The "City Hall" was actually the Sonoma County Courthouse. It was demolished in 1966.
Cast
- Teresa Wright as Charlotte "Charlie" Newton
- Joseph Cotten as Charles Oakley
- Henry Travers as Joseph Newton, Charlotte's father, who loves to read crime stories
- Patricia Collinge as Emma Newton, Charlotte's mother and Charles' sister
- Macdonald Carey as Detective Jack Graham
- Wallace Ford as Detective Fred Saunders
- Hume Cronyn as Herbie Hawkins, a neighbor who, like Charlie's father, is also a crime fiction buff. He appears periodically and discusses ideas for the perfect murder with his friend Joseph Newton
Alfred Hitchcock appears about 15 minutes into the film, on the train to Santa Rosa, playing bridge with a man and a woman (Dr and Mrs. Harry). Charlie Oakley is traveling on the train under the assumed name of Otis. Mrs. Harry is eager to help Otis, who is feigning illness in order to avoid meeting fellow passengers, but Dr. Harry is not interested and keeps playing bridge. Hitchcock on his part seems surprised to see that he has somehow been dealt a full suite of spades, a Grand Slam bridge hand.
Honors
Remake
The film was adapted for Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theater aired on January 3, 1944 with its original leading actress and William Powell as Uncle Charlie. (Patrick McGilligan said Hitchcock had originally wanted Powell to play Uncle Charlie, but MGM refused to lend the actor for the film.) In 1950, Shadow of a Doubt was featured as a radio-play on Screen Directors Playhouse. It starred Cary Grant as Uncle Charlie and Betsy Drake as the younger Charlie.[1] It was also adapted to the Ford Theatre (February 18, 1949). Joseph Cotten reprised the role on radio in The Screen Guild Theater adaptations of May 24, 1943 and June 21, 1948 and again in the Academy Award Theatre production of Shadow of a Doubt which aired Sept. 11, 1946.[2]
The film was remade as Step Down to Terror (1958).
Notes
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