© William Ahearn 2007
“Shadow of a Doubt” isn’t one of my favorite
Hitchcock flicks, it’s one of my favorite films by any director. Based
on an idea by Gordon McDonell – who never did much else – and
a script by Thornton Wilder (the playwright of “Our Town” and
“The Skin of our Teeth”), Sally Benson (the novel Meet Me
in St Louis and the Elvis flick “Viva Las Vegas,” among other
things) and Alma Reville (who wrote the scripts for “The Paradine Case,”
“Stage Fright” and “Suspicion” for Hitchcock, and
was also his wife), it’s a very different Hitchcock movie.
“Shadow of a Doubt” is without question the best-written,
directed and photographed film by Alfred Hitchcock. Joseph Valentine –
who also shot “Rope” (one of the worst films ever made) and “Saboteur”
(just another innocent-man-on-the-run-meets-girl movie) for Hitchcock –
was behind the camera. However mediocre those other films may be, “Shadow
of a Doubt” shot on-location and with a really good script is a really
good flick.
Uncle Charley is no innocent man yet he is on the run and
has every reason to be. The local situation is getting hot for him so he takes
it on the lam to the comfort of his family. It is his married sister’s
family to be precise, and the niece that shares his name. Film theorists,
who love to complicate everything, cite this film and “Strangers on
a Train” as the two Hitchcock doppelganger movies but that is needless
over-thinking. (“Strangers on a Train” is a completely different
situation that has its roots in the cinema noir tradition and that
is explained in that essay.)
Uncle Charley kills rich widows. And with the law closing in it’s only
a matter of time until something incriminates him. Maybe he’s not as
safe in small town America as he thought he would be.
This film is where Hitchcock’s usually overrated reputation
lives up to the hype. And check out Uncle Charlie’s arrival in the small
town and see what may have been the inspiration for the opening of David Lynch’s
“Blue Velvet.” This is the real deal. “Shadow of a Doubt”
is a really good film and the best that Hitchcock ever did.