Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

In one of Alfred Hitchcock's most suspenseful thrillers (and his personal favorite) - the cynical, film-noirish, war-time film was shot on location in the small, story-book town of Santa Rosa, California - a representative place of wholesomeness, law-and order, and middle-American values within a family. The script by Thornton Wilder (plus Hitchcock's wife Alma Reville, and New Yorker writer Sally Benson) was based upon an unpublished, 6-page short story outline titled "Uncle Charlie" by Gordon McDonell - the source of the film's sole Oscar nomination. It was remade as the film-noirish Step Down to Terror (1958) by director Harry Keller.

In the film's main plot, Uncle Charlie, a psychotic killer whose namesake niece, an adoring teenager-heroine also named Charlie, was emotionally excited by news of the arrival of her worldly uncle. Young Charlie has wished for change and excitement in her boring life, and was psychically linked to her favorite uncle - but then she slowly began over time to intuitively suspect that her beloved relative was a wanted mass murderer who had brought dark corruption with him. A cat-and-mouse game soon developed between the two Charlies, that turned out to reveal that they were diametrically-opposed opposites. She used clues including a newspaper article and an engraved ring stolen from a woman he had murdered to uncover his homicidal impulses. When Uncle Charlie came to recognize her suspicions about his evil, murderous secrets, her life became endangered.

The many themes in the film included a belief in superstition (and good and bad fortunes), telepathy, domestic menace, and the preponderance of opposites (doubles or twinning).

• during the titles sequence that included views of Gay Nineties bourgeois couples dancing, the tune of Franz Lehár's "Merry Widow Waltz" (in Dimitri Tiomkin's Original Score) played as a thematic leitmotif [Note: A real-life mass murderer in the mid-1920s named Earle Leonard Nelson, dubbed with the macabre nickname "Merry Widow," strangled middle-aged women until he was hanged in 1928.]
• the opening sequence introduced the chilling, twisted, devious homicidal character of Uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) - the "Merry Widow Murderer" - evil personified from the very first scenes, as he laid on a bed in a Dracula-like vampirish position; he knew that two men were looking for him: "They aren't exactly friends of mine. They've never seen me. That's odd, isn't it?", and then dared them from his window to locate his evil guilt: "What do you know? You're bluffing. You've nothing on me"

Uncle Charlie (and Young "Charlie") Similarly Lying on Bed in Two Different Locations

• Uncle Charlie elusively disappeared and fled from Philadelphia, after committing a third murder of a rich widow by strangulation; he suspected that his apprehension by police was imminent, and schemed to drop out of sight by sending a telegram about his visit and arrival to his adoring, middle-class relatives, including his unsuspecting, talkative, oblivious older sister Mrs. Joseph (Emma) Newton (Patricia Collinge) in California
• members of the Newton family included precocious teenaged daughter "Charlie" (Charlotte) Newton (Teresa Wright), Charlie's symbiotic namesake and his young favorite niece, two additional younger children: congenial Roger (Charles Bates) and 9 year-old, spectacle-wearing, bookish Ann (Edna May Wonacott), and Emma's bank clerk husband Joseph Newton (Henry Travers); Young Charlie was introduced lying fully dressed in the same supine position on her bed as her Uncle Charlie in the first scene

Joseph Newton (Henry Travers)

Mrs. Joseph (Emma) Newton (Patricia Collinge)

Ann (Edna May Wonacott)

• Uncle Charlie's train arrived in the clean, quiet, small and traditional, bright town of Santa Rosa, California, as black funereal smoke belched into the sky and a dark, tarnishing shadow was cast over everything to symbolize his ominous arrival; his coming into the town, walking first hunched over and with a walking stick, suddenly changed - he was walking erect, smoking a phallic cigar, bringing sexual tension and hiding his proclivities toward sexual violence and incestual interest in the Newton's family niece; during Charlie's visit, Joe offered "Charlie" to give up her room to her Uncle
• the first evening following dinner after Uncle Charlie had presented gifts to everyone, he met privately in the kitchen with the elated young "Charlie" who mentioned telepathic twin-ness similarities and affinities between her congenial and suave Uncle Charlie and herself - she was named for the uncle she idolized: ("I can't explain it but you came here and Mother's so happy and I'm glad that she named me after you and that she thinks we're both alike. I think we are too. I know it. It would spoil things if you should give me anything....we're not just an uncle and a niece, we're something else. I know you...we're sorta like twins, don't you see?"); she placed her hand trustingly in his as he 'wed' his twin with his gift of an emerald ring; she was overjoyed, but Uncle Charlie became apprehensive when she noticed its initial engravings: ("'TS from BM' - those must be someone's initials") and refused to return it
• as young Charlie returned to the dining room, visions of the waltzing couples in the ballroom from the beginning of the film (and from the idealized past) were superimposed over him - mysteriously marking and linking him - along with the humming of the tune of the Merry Widow Waltz
• the film was enriched by the running dialogue between Joseph and his neighbor and brother-in-law Herbie Hawkins (Hume Cronyn in his film debut), who morbidly debated and were obsessed about the best techniques to commit the 'perfect murder' - both were mystery buffs who read pulp murder-mystery crime stories; after dinner they retreated to the front porch; Joe seemed to be more interested in getting away with murder, while Herb showed greater attention to planning, the planting of detailed clues and elaborate killing methods
• later in the evening, Uncle Charlie suspiciously and cleverly absconded with a page from the family's newspaper in the living room, possibly because of an offensive article on pages 3-4 of the paper; in his room later in the evening, young Charlie spotted her uncle's coat pocket bulging with part of the evening's newspaper and revealed her knowledge of his hidden secret; she closed the door and triumphantly announced how she had penetrated into his concealment and knew he was hiding something; she grabbed the missing newspaper page with a gaping hole and held it up to him; he grabbed and gripped her wrists tightly, and violently wrenched down on them - causing her fearful shock, pain, and anguish: "Uncle Charlie, you're hurting me"; he excused his behavior by claiming the paper had a gossip article about a friend

Uncle Charlie Cleverly Removing Two Pages from the Newspaper

Young Charlie Briefly Assaulted by her Uncle Charlie For Noticing Stolen Newspaper Pages

• the next morning, Uncle Charlie's older sister Emma informed him that she had agreed to have the family interviewed and photographed as a typical or representative American family by the local newspaper; Uncle Charlie angrily disapproved that she had given permission for "two strangers" to interview them and take pictures of their "typical American family" life - exposing them "to a couple of snoopers"
• a possible explanation for Charlie's aberrant behavior arose when Young Charlie fetched and produced an old photograph of her Uncle as a child; Emma recalled that he had suffered a terrible bicycle accident and skull fracture that nearly killed him when he was a child; the life-altering incident utterly changed him forever, and he would regularly "get into mischief"
• as he had proposed the night before, Uncle Charlie visited the local bank to transfer some money ("Thirty or forty thousand, just to start things off right") from the East and put it into Joe's bank after opening up an account; at the bank, a vain middle-aged woman Mrs. Potter (Frances Carson) flirtatiously admitted to being a rich widow (a "merry widow"?) who delighted in spending her late husband's money

Uncle Charlie at the Bank Depositing $40K Into a New Account

Mrs. Potter (Frances Carson) - Uncle Charlie's Rich Widow Acquaintance - A New Possible Victim

• at first, young Charlie was fascinated by her uncle's wit, urbane and worldly sophistication - but then a "shadow of a doubt" slowly began to emerge; the first suspicions about Uncle Charlie arose when he vehemently refused to take the government's national poll survey and have his photograph taken by interviewer Jack Graham (Macdonald Carey) and photographer Fred Saunders (Wallace Ford)
• after lunch in town, the group returned home and met up with the government survey-takers or "questionnaire men"; Uncle Charlie was immediately wary of them, but Charlie promised to protect his privacy, and made the two agree to restrict their questioning and exclude him; however, when the men ventured upstairs, Fred Saunders had an opportunity to photograph Charlie's empty room - because Uncle Charlie had mysteriously disappeared; when he suddenly returned by the back stairs, Saunders took the opportunity to snap an unpermitted photo of him; Uncle Charles snapped - he angrily and hurriedly confiscated the roll of film to his niece's troubled consternation (had Saunders swapped the film roll with another one?)
• that evening, Charlie received Emma's permission for Jack Graham to "borrow" her for the evening as a guide around town, and they went for a Friday night dinner at Gunner's Grill, followed by a visit to a downtown park; Graham revealed to an already-suspicious but still-stunned young Charlie that both he and Saunders were police detectives looking for a "hunted" man; they were specifically investigating her Uncle Charlie as a murder suspect ("This man we want may be your uncle"); he convinced her to vow secrecy, and promised that if Charles was their man, he wouldn't be arrested in front of her mother to spare her feelings; as they said goodnight outside her home, she told him that she still had faith in her uncle
• in an amusing, intervening sequence, mystery critics Herb and Joe engaged in a second conversation in the film - about killing each other with poison
• later that evening in an increasingly-suspenseful and tense sequence, young Charlie snuck out by the back stairs and rushed to the town's Free Public Library just as it was closing at nine pm, to view the contents of the torn-out article that Uncle Charlie had suspiciously taken from her father's newspaper; rushing along, she was heedless of traffic and was reprimanded by a cop at an intersection ("Get back!"); at the library's front door, the stern, old-maid librarian (Eily Malyon) allowed her inside for three minutes after young Charlie pleaded and begged
• in the reading room, young Charlie reacted dramatically -- her eyes widened as she found damning evidence that her Uncle was the "Merry Widow Murderer -- Strangler of Three Rich Women" - and that he was the object of a nationwide search

The Town Library Sequence - Young Charlie's Discovery of Her Uncle's True Identity

• she also put two-and-two together - the initials engraved on the back of the emerald ring given as a gift to her by Uncle Charlie matched the initials of the murderer's third widowed victim (Thelma Schenley (TS) from husband Bruce Matthewson (BM)) - it was the film's major turning point - emphasized by the camera's overhead shot isolating her at a distance from behind - among the dark shadows; it was undeniable that her Uncle Charlie was guilty; again, the image dissolved into the dancing, revolving 'Merry-Widow' couples on the ballroom floor
• in a key dinner table speech the next evening (staged as practice for a speech he had promised to give to the town's womens' club), a contemptuous, misogynistic monologue was delivered by Uncle Charlie - about his hatred for rich, lazily fat, detestable, middle-aged widows; he was viewed in profile for most of the explosive speech, as the camera moved even closer: "...Women keep busy in towns like this. In the cities it's different. The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. 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"
• midway, when young Charlie objected to his degrading assessment and characterization: ("They're alive! They're human beings!"), Uncle Charlie turned toward the camera, in gigantic close-up and coldly asked: "Are they? Are they, Charlie? Are they human or are they fat wheezing animals, hmm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?"
• after dinner, Herb wandered in again and commenced another discussion about more murder techniques (besides blunt instruments or poison in coffee) - poisonous mushrooms and drowning in a bathtub; Charlie expressed her upset about her father's preferred way of 'relaxing': "Oh, what's the matter with you two? Do you always have to talk about killing people?"
• slightly later after she dashed outside from the table and was pursued by Uncle Charlie, the two entered the nearby 'Til-Two cocktail lounge - a smoke-filled, noisy and dark bar populated by war-time sailors and less-than-respectable, downtrodden ladies both inside and out; the two Charlies sat at one of the booths for an ominous discussion; at first, they faced each other as the mentally-disturbed Uncle Charlie began to act aggressively toward his niece: ("...Now look, Charlie, Something's come between us. I don't want that to happen. Why, we're old friends. More than that. We're like twins. You said so yourself...."); she took the emerald ring from her pocket and returned it to him by placing it on the table, as their drink order was brought
• during their booth conversation, he told her how she hadn't experienced - as he had - how the world was a living hell filled with foul swine within houses; he began lecturing her, accused her of knowing nothing about the real world, and confronted her about what she knew about him: "You think you know something, don't you? You think you're the clever little girl that knows something. There's so much you don't know. So much. What do you know, really? You're just an ordinary little girl living in an ordinary little town. You wake up every morning of your life and you know perfectly well that there's nothing in the world to trouble you. You go through your ordinary little day and at night you sleep your untroubled, ordinary little sleep filled with peaceful, stupid dreams. And I brought you nightmares! Or did I, or was it a silly inexpert little lie? You live in a dream. You're a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you rip the fronts off houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie! Use your wits. Learn something"
• as she approached closer to him and learned the truth, she realized that he was aware of her knowledge and suspicions; she had to decide whether she should reveal her findings to the authorities or protect her family
• after her confrontation in the seedy bar with her uncle, she departed as they continued to discuss Uncle Charlie's future in town; she reluctantly agreed to not say anything if he promised to leave town in a few days, to avoid any scandal and to protect her mother from knowing that her younger brother was a murderer
• the next day, after Sunday morning church, Charlie spoke with Saunders who told her they were awaiting word about the picture he had secretly taken of Uncle Charlie, to see if he was identified as their suspect; Saunders suggested that she encourage her uncle to leave town "within a couple of hours" and she vehemently agreed: "I'll make him leave. I'll make him"
• the film's plot was turned upside-down when a noon broadcast heard by Herb reported to Joe about the death of another Merry Widow Murderer suspect in the state of Maine as he fled from police [Note: The other murder suspect, actually innocent, died a horrible death at an airport when he was fleeing from police and ran into a plane propeller.] Joe and Herb were blissfully ignorant of the criminal murderer in their own midst; both young Charlie and her Uncle overheard the revelation
• Uncle Charlie was relieved and exultant, and lept up the stairs, two at a time, but then he turned when he sensed that she been looking at him from the outside porch; he slowly turned and faced the camera, and noticed her framed in the doorway and matching his look; she was the only remaining threat that wouldn't let him off the hook, and still held his secret; the scene faded to black

Uncle Charlie Sensing That Charlie Was Still a Deadly Threat

• Jack Graham arrived and he and young Charlie retreated to the garage where he notified Charlie that their search and job had ended; he also felt compelled to tell her of his love: "I love you, Charlie. I love you terribly. I know it's no time to tell you now and I'm sorry. Do you mind?"; she responded: "I'd like us to be friends. I know that. Well, we are friends"
• Uncle Charlie was relieved (and knew that Charlie no longer had his emerald ring as evidence against him), but still felt he wanted to remain in Santa Rosa, but that meant that he had to eliminate young Charlie - he made two failed 'murder' attempts to kill her - first by a tampered-with broken step on the back stairs; they had a clash of wills as they faced each other in dark silhouettes: (she told him: "So go away, I'm warning you. Go away or I'll kill you myself");
• and then, while everyone was preparing to depart and attend Uncle Charlie's Women's Club lecture, Uncle Charles' second 'murder' attempt was implemented - a malfunctioning garage door paired with toxic fumes of carbon monoxide poisoning; when Uncle Charlie realized that his plan had failed, he pretended to rescue young Charlie; as a result of the incident, Charlie elected to stay behind and prepare for the after-lecture party for the guests

Uncle Charlie's Two Failed Attempts to Kill Young Charlie
The Back Stairs Step
	Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in the Garage

• while everyone was at the Sunday night lecture, young Charlie frantically tried to call Graham but couldn't reach him; then, she searched in her Uncle's room for the allegedly misplaced emerald ring (that she had given back to her Uncle); once everyone returned from the talk, in an intense tracking shot from her Uncle Charlie's POV, young Charlie was seen gliding down the stair railing in a dramatic entrance, with the incriminating, offensive, condemning object (the emerald ring) framed in a gigantic closeup on her right hand
• Uncle Charlie surrendered to her by announcing to everyone at the post-lecture reception that he was departing on the train for San Francisco the next day (on the same train as widowed Mrs. Potter, his next victim)
• after farewells at the station, Uncle Charlie held back his young niece Charlie from exiting his train car; in the thrilling concluding scene on the moving train in the platform between train cars, there was a struggle between them as the train began to move faster; he seized her as she panicked and tried to break away. His face was absolutely monstrous as he advanced on her; she struggled into the space between the cars, while he gripped her mouth and throat and opened the door to fling her onto the tracks

The Struggle Between Them On the Train Platform Between Cars

• Uncle Charlie explained his homicidal intentions: "I've got to do this, Charlie, so long as you know what you do about me." He twisted her around in his tight embrace, as she grappled with him. He lifted her off the ground - her legs dangled in the air. Her black-gloved hand gripped the door handle and then lost its hold

Uncle Charlie's 3rd Failed Murder Attempt of Young Charlie on Train - Death of Uncle Charlie

• both watched the passing blur of landscape and tracks (two parallel railway tracks became one), delaying the inevitable plunge into death; Uncle Charles prepared her by waiting for the right moment of lethal speed and exhilaration (and sexual receptiveness), educating her to the monstrous world that he earlier said she must learn - as his twin: "Not yet, Charlie, let it get a little faster! Just a little faster! Faster! Now!" She twisted and reversed positions on him, upset his balance and pushed him away - he fell headlong into the path of an oncoming, speeding train on an adjacent track. Her act freed him from his (and her) nightmares and from his curse to kill - she fulfilled her earlier threat ("I'll kill you myself"), aiding her uncle to embrace death
• the image dissolved to the recurrent one of dancing couples twirling to the Merry Widow Waltz
• a huge and impressive funeral procession on the spectator-lined streets of Santa Rosa was held for Uncle Charlie that ended up at the town's church; only Young Charlie and Jack Graham, who stood together, knew of her Uncle's murderous past but kept it a secret, and let the town believe that her Uncle died in an accident; in contrast to the glowing tribute being delivered in the church by a clergyman, Charlie's view of the world was no longer idealistic after the horrors of the world were revealed to her through her evil uncle's view of the world; Jack's similarly skeptical view of the world echoed Uncle Charlie's cynicism