Shadow of a Doubt

Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful Shadow of a Doubt may be remembered best for a world-weary sophisticate’s suddenly menacing meditation on “horrible, faded, fat, greedy women” at a family dinner table.

Framed by Franz Lehár’s “Merry Widow Waltz”, the plot is a complicated dance told in pictures between “Uncle Charlie” Oakley (Joseph Cotten), a man-on-the-run compelled to confess his sordid past, and his intuitive niece and namesake Charlie Newton (Teresa Wright) who uncovers his dangerous secret.

Hitchcock’s visual narrative technique and montage in this film follow practices he developed making silent films and influences such as the German director F. W. Murnau. Because MP has discussed these topics before, we shall review this film visually with two dozen of its stills.  

Shadow of a Doubt 1943 U.S. (108 minutes) Universal Pictures. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock; screenplay by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville from story by Gordon McDonell; director of photography Joseph Valentine; special photography by John P. Fulton (uncredited); editing by Milton Carruth; music by Dimitri Tiomkin; produced by Jack H. Skirball.

In principal roles: Teresa Wright (Charlie Newton), Joseph Cotton (Uncle Charlie Oakley), Henry Travers (Joseph Newton), Patricia Collinge (Emma Newton), Hume Cronyn (Herbie Hawkins), Ann Newton (Edna May Wonacott), Roger Newton (Charles Bates), Macdonald Carey (Jack Graham) and Wallace Ford (Fred Saunders), Clarence Muse (Pullman porter).