Shadow of a Doubt
Charles Spencer Oakley is a widow murderer, who decides to fake a surprise visit to his family in Santa Rosa in order to escape from the police's investigation.The whole plan runs perfectly, and even a wrong man is unfairly accused of all the crimes commited by "Uncle Charlie", thus freeing him from the constant pursuit of detective Jack Graham, who is convinced of "Uncle Charlie's" culpability. Although, his niece, Charlotte, begins to suspect "Uncle Charlie" is not the kind of person he claims to be.
"Uncle Charlie" gets aware of this fact, so for two times he tries to kill Charlotte in such a way, that everybody will think it has been accidental. As he finally tries to murder Charlotte in a train, she manages to push her uncle out from it so, that "Uncle Charlie" dies.
We then hear a conversation between Charlotte and detective Jack Graham, at which we learn "Uncle Charlie's" pesimistic vision of the world, which made him develope his killer personality.
'Shadow of a Doubt' was Hitchcock's next success in the United States, following the tendency initiated with 'Rebecca' and continued with 'Foreign Correspondent' and 'Suspicion'. It is one of Hitchcock's most contrasted masterpieces, because of its perfect development regarding not only suspense but pure plot creation and innovation.
Here, as in many Hitchcock films, the murderer's identity is early told to the viewer; since the beginning we "feel" something strange in "Uncle Charlie". We almost know, exactly at the movie's beginning, that Joseph Cotten will play the 'bad role', though it's really hard to say why. We just know, just as Charlotte will later suspect, that her uncle is not the wonderful person he appears to be.
As the movie goes on, this fact (apart from getting evident) allows us to observe Joseph Cotten's excellent actuation. He was unique at playing that distant but at the same time omnipresent personality, something we would enjoy later in 'Under Capricorn', though the quality level achieved by that film was clearly lower. At the same time, we shouldn't forget Theresa Wright's contribution, too. She played here the at the beginning innocent, almost naiv Charlotte, whose character will experiment the kind of evolution, which will later enable her (with some aid from detective Graham) to uncover "Uncle Charlie's" dark side.
It was not just a coincidence that Hitchcock himself once said he was very proud of this film's realization. Not only the movie's screenplay but the players' quality achieved here hardly superable heights.
