With Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten.
Written by Thornton Wilder. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
"How was church, Charlie? Did you count the house? Turn anybody away?”
“No … room enough for everyone.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Show's been running such a long time, I thought maybe attendance might be falling off.”
Director Alfred Hitchcock once explained the difference between horror and suspense. Horror, he said, is having a nice, normal situation unfold – two men sitting in a restaurant, say – when suddenly, BOOM! A bomb goes off and the shocked audience jumps an inch off their seats.
Suspense, on the other hand, is showing the audience a bomb being placed beneath the table where the two men will sit, having the two come in, sit down, and begin talking – while the audience writhes in their seats, knowing the bomb is ticking, ticking …
Shadow Of A Doubt multiplies that effect by multiplying the “bombs.” We know that Charles Oakley is a serial killer of vulnerable women – cold, cynical, merciless at doing whatever is necessary to protect himself. We know that his namesake niece, Charlie, adores him and feels a special “connection” with him. And we know that, once he comes to stay in her family’s home to hide out from the police, it’s only a matter of time before the observant Charlie discerns who he really is.
Gradually, we find other things ticking. We realize that, while Charlie is sharp enough to figure out what her stealthy uncle has become – no one else in her family, or insulated small town community, ever will. And that makes her a growing liability to a man whose genuine fondness for her will never outweigh his need for her silence.
But if Charlie’s life is increasingly in danger, so is her soul. Her uncle is as determined to corrupt her to his bitter vision of the world as he is to head off her suspicions. He glides into her cheerful, trusting, slightly dull environment like the serpent into Eden, throwing dark implications and bleak interpretations over things she’s always accepted as simple, sweet, and good.
Is he trying to seduce her into his cruel way of thinking? To prey on her youth and restless desire to move beyond small town certainties and conventions? Or is he merely trying to distract her from discovering – and sharing – his secrets?
In the latter, at least, he’s only partly successful, but it’s Charlie who’s faced with two heartbreaking realities: one, she can’t tell her family what she knows without shattering their innocence forever. And two … she may be more like her beloved uncle than she imagined. As their battle of wits ticks to its explosive climax, Charlie is shaken to find that she can be every bit as cold and merciless as he is.
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