Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 thriller Shadow of a Doubt tells the story of Charlie, a teenage girl who is overjoyed at the arrival of her uncle Charles (Joseph Cotton). But the arrival of her idol and role model comes with suspicion that the man is more dangerous than she appears to be. Just that description alone plays to the classic idea of suspense and Hitchcockian thrill, but it also has a brilliant cast and a score that accentuates the uneasiness and thrilling suspense. This film, which was Oscar nominated for its masterful original screenplay, is noted as one of Hictchcock’s best… by Hitchcock himself.

There are many personal attachments to the film that Hitchcock cited as to why this film was one of his favorites. His wife, Alma Reville, played a part in writing the screenplay, for instance. The film also takes its time to establish its characters as fleshed out and three-dimensional. The entire first act, and a majority of the second, are utilized to build the connections within Charlie’s family. Hitchcock himself noted the emphasis on character in Shadow of a Doubt:

“It was one of those rare occasions where you could combine character with suspense. Usually in a story there isn’t time to develop character.”

Hitchcock Sets Immediate Suspense

Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt Hitchcock movie cast
Universal Pictures

What Hitchcock does best is his ability to build suspense immediately in the first act of a film. We don’t have to know the characters or understand their full story. But something feels off and uneasy. In the excellent opening sequence of the film, we see a man in a suit carefully looking around his apartment, and is followed by mysterious men upon leaving his place. Who are these men following him, and why is there such a heavy score accompanying the foot chase? We know nothing for certain, who is good and who is not. But this moment of tension establishes an uncertainty that makes Charles an unreliable protagonist… until we meet his young niece Charlie.

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The audience sees the film through young Charlie's eyes. She is played brilliantly by Teresa Wright, who brings that young naivety to her character. The revelations that the film presents are all shown through Charlie’s eyes. We find out about the Merry Widow Killer with Charlie as she goes to the library. We see Charles grab her wrists and pull her aggressively close to him, then play it off as a joke to the scared girl. She begins to suspect him as the killer, but no one seems to believe her apprehensions for most of the film, except the audience who sees these events play out with her.

Technical Approach in Shadow of a Doubt

Shadow of a Doubt Hitchcock movie cast with Joseph Cotton
Universal Pictures

In an interview during the CBC Television Series’ Telescope, Hitchcock discussed the importance of the technical approach to filmmaking and why it is an important quality to crafting a compelling narrative. In this interview, he also notes that Shadow of a Doubt is by far his greatest work. He also goes on to mention his process on the camera work and technical applications to making a film like this so thrilling.

“Well you have two kinds of what we might call montage. We call it cutting, it isn’t exactly that. Cutting implies severing something. It really should be called assembly. Mosaic is assembling something to create a whole. Montage means the assembly of pieces of film, which move in rapid succession before the eye and create an idea. Of course the most elementary form is the juxtaposition of imagery in various sizes.”

Hitchcock understood the idea of the montage and how the act of cutting a piece of film is meant to join that piece of story to another. It is a small portion of a larger story that, when joined together, creates the entire narrative. Shadow of a Doubt features connecting sequences of shots that build suspense but need to be conjoined in order to progress the story forward. From the opening chase sequence to the scene where Charlie and the detective become locked in the barn, Hitchcock crafted the editing meticulously so that the tension builds with subtle hints of what is to come.

Hitchcock Provides Subtle Hints

Shadow of a Doubt Hitchcock movie cast
Universal Pictures

There are a variety of hints scattered around this psychological thriller that play to the audience’s suspicion. Is Charles the Merry Widow Killer? From the ring he gives to Charlie, to an aggressive pull at the young Charlie’s wrist, we don’t have a definitive answer for most of the film, but we may be as paranoid as Charlie. However, about an hour into the film, as the tension continues to grow, we see the family seated at the table for dinner. Charles begins discussing his feelings towards women:

Charles: Cities are full of women, middle aged, and widows. Husband's dead. Husbands who spent their lives making fortune, then they die and leave money to their wives. Their silly wives. 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 the money. Proud of their jewelry but nothing else. Horrible, faded, fat, greedy women.

Charlie: They’re alive! They’re human beings?

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The camera slowly moves closer towards Charlie’s disturbed face in this maniacal and tense moment of unrelenting sexism and rage. The man is gone, and the potential monster begins to rise from underneath his fancy suit.

Strangers on a Train

Shadow of a Doubt with Joseph Cotton
Universal Pictures

The final moments of the film show the man to be the true monster. Charles confronts Charlie as he is ready to depart at the train station. But his intentions turn violent in one of Hitchcock's scariest moments, as he begins to strangle his niece. This moment is the crescendo to the most intense build-up of suspense and tension. After all, the most valuable conclusion to a thriller is payoff, and while the final moments are brief, it is a cathartic moment of relief where our suspicions are validated and assured. Charles is the killer, and his hands ultimately lead to his downfall.