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.

Flick of The Day: Touch of Evil

Orson Welles is one of the great figures of Hollywood cinema. A child prodigy, he created a masterpiece with his feature debut, Citizen Kane, aged just 26. There is a certain revisionist view in vogue at the moment, which attempts to lessen the importance of the film, but it is so wrong. Even the most myopic of modern viewers can see how far ahead of its time it was in style, narrative structure and technique. However, Kane was a commercial failure and a controversial one at that. Thereafter, Welles was never given the chance to make a film in Hollywood without interference, and never lived up to the early promise of his debut. However the closest he came was today's flick of the day, Touch of Evil.

Touch Of Evil (50th Anniversary Edition)

After a long period in the wilderness, Welles was hired to play the role of Captain Quinlan, a corrupt local police captain in a town on the American side of the Mexican border. As was often the case, he was soon directing and writing the feature, largely at the behest of star Charlton Heston. The film opens with a much imitated and lauded tracking shot in a rough and tumble Mexican border town, as a bomb is placed in the back of a car of a local businessman and his girlfriend. We follow the car as it moves to the border crossing, along the way we meet Mexican narcotics officer Ramon Vargas, played by Heston and his new bride Susan, played by Janet Leigh as they walk back to their Hotel on the American side. Just over the border, the bomb explodes in a fiery ball, killing the passengers. Of course, as the man on the spot, Vargas feels the need to get involved. Before long, Quinlan is on the scene and doesn't react well to Vargas' involvement. Together they investigate the crime, with Quinlan suspecting a local Mexican employee of the murdered man of planting the bomb. However he chooses to plant evidence on him rather then find proof, setting him on a collision course with Vargas. The film is classic noir, with an ending to match.

Welles is brilliant himself as the malevolent Quinlan, the big fish in the small pond used to getting his way all the time. As one of his former paramour's Tanya played Marlene Dietrich, puts it at the end of the film:

He was some kind of a man... What does it matter what you say about people?

While Heston is not believable as a Mexican, his straight laced approach to the role of the narcotics officer Vargas is well suited and he plays it well throughout. Janet Leigh isn't given a whole lot to do as his wife, apart from being set upon by a band of "marijuana fiends", in a scene that is funny in an unintended manner. 

The plot is no more then your average potboiler then, but it is made then the material by Welles direction. The opening tracking shot, which lasts nearly 3 and a half minutes is just one of a number of technically daring shots in the film and Welles assembled  a great supporting cast including cameo appearances from Zsa-Zsa Gabor and Joseph Cotten. Welles was always famous for his ability to work with actors, seeking their input which was something the likes of Janet Leigh has not experienced before:

"It started with rehearsals. We rehearsed two weeks prior to shooting, which was unusual. We rewrote most of the dialogue, all of us, which was also unusual, and Mr. Welles always wanted our input. It was a collective effort, and there was such a surge of participation, of creativity, of energy. You could feel the pulse growing as we rehearsed. You felt you were inventing something as you went along. Mr. Welles wanted to seize every moment. He didn't want one bland moment. He made you feel you were involved in a wonderful event that was happening before your eyes."

The film should have gone on to great critical acclaim, however when Welles presented his cut to Univeral Internation Pictures, they took the film away from and re-shot and edited it to the point where the plot was incomprehensible and robbed it of the style and wit he had wanted. It was released as a B movie and it largely disappeared from view thereafter until in 1998, the film was re-edited as per Welles wishes and released again on DVD where it found the audience it deserved.

Ultimately Welles never made another film for a major studio, and his relationship with Hollywood was frosty in general. Viewed today, it is a fine film, an entertaining story which is driven by strong performances from Welles and Heston. While not a masterpiece, it is a fine example of the talent of Orson Welles as a director, producing a silk purse of a film out of a sows ear of a b-movie story. Oh, what might have been...