From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-The Merry Widow Murderer- Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow Of A Doubt”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow Off A Doubt.

DVD Review

Shadow Of A Doubt, starring Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Thornton Wilder, Universal Pictures, 1943

Sometimes landing on your head or some other traumatic incident when young can have serious consequences later in life. Or at least this is the stated premise, or half premise, behind this Alfred Hitchcock thriller, Shadow Of A Doubt. The mental state angle may be a bit awry and a bit too pat as the draw to pull us in and suspend our disbelief that good old Uncle Charley (played by Joseph Cotton) is the villain of the piece and is the serial killer of rich widows but there are some interesting psychological moments as we see how this villainous man meets his inevitable just desserts. Of course the max daddy of all Hitchcock thrillers, Psycho, set the standard by scaring every pre-teen, teen, and maybe a few adults half to death by NOT showing us what happened when that serial killer was about his mad man work. This one doesn’t really come close by as I say it has a few interesting points.

Needless to say any screen play written by Thornton Wilder (Our Town) means that small town Americana with everybody normal going about their everyday normal business is sure to be in play. Certainly the town is not suspecting that a mad man has just descended on them an event that should have caused every widow in town to check her insurance coverage. And it, late 1930s Santa Rosa (California) is here as the backdrop for Uncle Charlie’s timely visit (timely for him as he as just lammed it out of the East just in front of the law) to rekindle the old family relationships. But see dear Charlie is not the boy of old small town ambitions but of master race certitudes and scorn of the small town rubes. And to cap that scorn he is not above offing a rich widow or two in the process. And that quirky tendency is what drives the film, drives the law men in pursuit and drives one devoted niece, Charlie (nee Charlotte played by Teresa Wright) half-crazy with suspicion and disbelief before she tumbles to the facts of dastardly Uncle Charlie ‘s life. Almost too late.