Flick of The Day: Shadow of a Doubt

As I was reading through the list of 111 movies that have graced the pages of The Daily Flick since I began, I was shocked to see that I had yet to review a single film by Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense. Indeed, I have reviewed two works of Henri-Georges Clouzot, the so called "French Hitchcock", The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques and none from the man himself, Hitch. In that spirit then, today's flick of the day is one of Hitchcock's lesser known classics, Shadow of a Doubt.

Shadow of a Doubt

Starring the brilliant Joseph Cotten, truely one of the most underrated actors of the century as Charles Oakley, a man with a secret. As the film opens, he hides in a boarding house in New York pursued by shady unknown men. As they pursue, Charles decides to head for California to pay a visit to his sister and her family in the kind of idyllic and peaceful pre-war American  town that existed only in the movies. Of course, it is apparent early on that all is not as it seems with Charles. He has the kind of eerie charm that at once disarms and raises alarm bells. As my mother might have put it, there is just something not quite right about him.

On arriving in California, Charles endears himself to all including his impressionable young niece Charlie, played by Teresa Wright. Charlie adores her Uncle however when a pair of detectives turn up, posing as magazine writers and asking questions about Uncle Charles, her suspicions begin to be aroused. Why has he torn a headline from the evening newspaper about the Merry Widow murderer? Why does he refuse to have his photo taken? As the tension mounts and her Uncle's behaviour begins to become more erratic, Charlie is left with only one conclusion.

This is Hitchcock's first great masterpiece and perhaps his most American film, expertly dissecting the vicissitudes of small town life between the wars, as small towns across America were becoming encroached on by the inexorable rise of urbanisation and the automobile. It also plays on that universal fear of the relative who you just don't trust. Every family in the world has a black sheep but what if he was more then that? Hitchcock plays on these fears expertly and Joseph Cotten is excellent as the decidedly odd Charles. Quick to anger and yet endlessly trying to endear himself, it is in short creepy.

Uncle Charlie: The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands, dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money, proud of their jewelry but of nothing else, horrible, faded, fat, greedy women... Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals, hmm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?

A fascinating psychological study and a film that is as thrilling today as it was upon its release. It is perhaps his darkest work, the worst possible outcome is the ending you get. It is your classic good vs evil tale in small town America. A classic to be sure with well drawn characters and a charming setting that is beautifully shot by Joseph Valentine on location in California. Teresa Wright excels as Charlie, in only her fourth picture. She would go on to have a long career, making her final performance in an adaptation of John Grisham's The Rainmaker opposite a young Matt Damon some 60 years after this film. Quite a career.

The scene above is perhaps my favourite shot of Hitchcock's long and varied career. It is as Uncle Charles train arrives in town, and while the family await his arrival, the youngest boy hangs back transfixed by the great locomotive. His eyes follow it down the platform. It is at once perfectly realistic and yet represents the best of cinema. Well, what more can be said then? It is a classic to be sure and a film that still shines through all these years later. A must see.