Writing on a Classic: Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Revisiting contemporary and modern critical appreciation
Alfred Hitchcock brings murder to unsuspecting community
Devil in our midst: It takes Girl Power to end existential threat
One of the Master of Suspense’s favourites of his own films

Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.

Shadow of a Doubt: Writing on a Classic | Collectors Guide, Pt 2: Soundtrack and remakes

Shadow of a Doubt (1943, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) US insert poster

US insert poster, similar to the US style D one sheet, three sheet and Australian one sheet

Charlie’s Uncle
Universal’s Shadow of a Doubt is Alfred Hitchcock at very close to his best. As in Suspicion, the globular genie of melodrama creates an almost intolerable pressure of suspense through subtle conflict of character, in contrast to the peripatetic action of his The 39 Steps and Saboteur.

The Newtons of this story are a decent, dull middle-class family living in Santa Rosa, Calif. Nothing much has ever happened to them; by rights, nothing out of the ordinary ever should have. When something does, it is known only to their daughter Young Charlie (Teresa Wright) , after Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), for whom she was named, arrives for a visit bringing gifts, an unlimited supply of money and anecdotes, and two detectives on his trail.

The Newtons are real people because [screenwriters] Thornton Wilder and Sally Benson have recorded unerringly the little worries, hopes, and hobbies, the small talk of the type. The fine melodramatic hand of Alma Reville (Hitchcock’s wife and collaborator in crime) takes over from there when Young Charlie, with growing horror, finally proves to her own satisfaction that her beloved uncle is a particularly nasty psychopathic killer. Whether she is the adoring niece or a disillusioned, terrified girl fighting for her life, Miss Wright gives a glowing performance. As Uncle Charlie, Joseph Cotten makes a successful about-face from the negative roles of his screen past; just as helpful are Henry Travers and Patricia Collinge as Young Charlie’s parents, and MacDonald Carey as a detective-love-interest.

Although Hitchcock shot his picture largely in Santa Rosa because of Hollywood’s $5,000 ceiling on sets, the authentic small-town atmosphere adds appreciably to the melodramatic impact of this one-sided duel of wits fought against the background of a placid, unsuspecting community. In Santa Rosa, some 55 miles north of San Francisco, Hitchcock wangled permission to use the town’s square, streets, and public buildings as his backdrop. Thrilled Santa Rosans took time out to be extras. And the flabbergasted, 10-year-old Edna May Wonacott was allowed to accept a featured role. The pig-tailed, bespectacled daughter of a local grocer, Edna May gives such a pert, knowing performance as Young Charlie’s precocious kid sister that Hitchcock put her under contract at the completion of the film. – Newsweek

AH Directs the Young Edna May Wonacott – Vogue

When Uncle Charlie comes to visit his relatives in the sleepy town of Santa Rosa, the “master of suspense” lays the foundation for one of his most engaging and suspense-filled excursions. Joseph Cotten stars as the charming Uncle Charlie, a beguiling killer who travels from Philadelphia to California just one step ahead of the law. But soon his unknowing niece and namesake, “Young Charlie” (Teresa Wright), begins to suspect her uncle of being the “Merry Widow” murderer and a deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins. As his niece draws closer to the truth, the psychopathic killer has no choice but to plot the death of his favorite relative in one of Hitchcock’s most riveting psychological thrillers. Shadow of a Doubt is one of the few Hitchcock films shot on location, adding to the realistic air of drama and tension that pervades the screen in this vintage thriller.

“No director was ever easier to work with,” recalled actor Joseph Cotten about his guiding mentor, Alfred Hitchcock, in Shadow of a Doubt. The 1942 film, Hitchcock’s thirtieth production, but only his sixth to be completed in the United States, stars Cotten as Uncle Charlie, suspected murderer of wealthy East Coast widows. Cotten’s flight to elude detectives brings the “Merry Widow” murderer to the all-American town of Santa Rosa, California, on the pretense of visiting his sister’s family, including his adoring teenage niece and namesake, Charlie, played by Teresa Wright.

One of Hitchcock’s personal favorites [alongside The Lodger and Rear Window], Shadow of a Doubt is based on a short story by Gordon McDonell, which loosely followed the true-life 1920s’ mass strangler, Earle Leonard Nelson. By setting the tale in hometown America, Hitchcock’s plot brings “murder,” as he referred to it, “into the home where it rightfully belongs. And after all,” the director continued, “it is in the home where most habits are formed.” Also starring Macdonald Carey as one of the pursuing detectives; Henry Travers and Patricia Collinge as Teresa Wright’s loveable but unsuspecting parents, Joseph and Emma Newton; and Hume Cronyn, in his screen debut as the Newton’s next-door-neighbor, the film tells a thrilling tale of deception and awesome discovery.

Our Town in Santa Rosa?
In the spring of 1942, Hitchcock, having decided to develop McDonell’s story for the screen, asked Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thornton Wilder to pen the script. The United States and Hitchcock’s mother country, England, were both in the upheaval of World War II, and the director wanted to present small-town serenity as the film setting. Wilder, as author of the popular play Our Town, was Hitchcock’s perfect candidate.

Our Town (1940): US Classicflix BD and DVD (2023) – only restored release; fan trailer

For several weeks, the two men scouted location sites and worked on the script’s treatment of character and nuance. Just as serious work was to begin on the screenplay itself, however, Wilder was called to active duty in the Army. Never one to let difficulties stand in his way, Hitchcock joined Wilder on a cross-country train ride to his new military post in Florida. Wilder would complete several pages of script and turn them over to Hitchcock—who was seated in a different compartment—for approval. The final page was handed to the director as the train rolled to a stop.

Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater (2007) – ed. J. D. McClatchy

TCM, WtA featurettes | Zone locations

Setting a Town on its Ears
Shadow of a Doubt was the first film production to mark its presence in the quiet northern California town of Santa Rosa. In a departure from Hitchcock’s use of studio lots, the entire picture was shot on location during the late summer of 1942.
The atmosphere was almost vacation-like, and cast and crew were welcomed with open arms. So appealing was the life-style of northern California, that Hitchcock bought a second home for himself south of San Francisco during Shadow of a Doubt’s filming. In fact, as an enticement to Hume Cronyn, the director said “when the day’s work is done, we’ll go out to the vineyards and squeeze the grapes through our hair.”

Extras were cast from the local populace, and Hitchcock, upon visiting a grocer’s shop much like his own father’s, selected Edna May Wonacott, the grocer’s daughter, to play Teresa Wright’s younger sister, Ann Newton. Hitchcock even got the local police into the action. The actor who portrayed the traffic cop in the film was so well-trained by the town’s authorities that as production was going on, a woman stopped to ask him for directions. In the film’s final sequence, the funeral procession appeared so real that passersby, unaware Hitchcock’s cameras were rolling, stopped to remove their hats as the hearse moved past them.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) fan poster

Fan poster, artist unknown

Behind the Scenes
Alfred Hitchcock, who was described by actress Teresa Wright as a man “we could trust to give us guidance and a sense of freedom,” had rarely enjoyed a production more than that of Shadow of a Doubt. In diverting his attention from the war abroad, Hitchcock immersed himself in the details of production, including the technical task of lighting four city blocks in order to shoot a sixty-second scene. Shadow of a Doubt, which employed the effective use of dualism throughout the film—the two Charlies, the Merry Widow Waltz and Merry Widow murderer, the two detectives, the two amateur sleuths, the two young children—was well-received after its release. Remade in 1958 as Step Down to Terror, the original film still remains a Hitchcock classic.

Teresa Wright, who was suggested by Thornton Wilder to portray the young Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt, had previously received Oscar nominations for The Little Foxes, The Pride of the Yankees and Mrs. Miniver—and had won Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for Mrs. Miniver. Joseph Cotten, who stars as Shadow of a Doubt’s Merry Widow murderer, was one of America’s top-billed actors in the early 1940s—he had made a name for himself in Citizen Kane and in The Magnificent Ambersons. Upon getting Uncle Charlie’s role, Hitchcock told him to go pick his own wardrobe. “Dress as if you were a rich man going to a resort for a vacation,” the director informed him. – US MCA-Universal/Time Life VHS (1992)

$5,000 Production: Hitchcock makes thriller under WPB order on new sets – Life

Foreground: Joseph Cotten, Alfred Hitchcock (seated), Teresa Wright and Henry Travers on set of Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Foreground: Joseph Cotten, Hitch (seated), Teresa Wright and Henry Travers on set (uncut)

Using an Actual Town Instead of Movie Sets – DoP Joseph Valentine, American Cinematographer

One of Hitchcock’s own personal favorites, Shadow of a Doubt was a collaboration with American playwright Thornton Wilder (Our Town), who wrote the screenplay. Together, they created this great psychological thriller that Hitchcock dryly said, “brought murder and violence back into the home, where it rightfully belongs.’’

Novelist Gordon McDonell came up with the idea that would become Shadow of a Doubt when his car broke down during a High Sierra vacation. While McDonell and his wife waited in the town of Hanford for their car to be repaired, McDonell hatched the idea of a murderer returning to his family home. Jack H. Skirball, the former rabbi who co-produced Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942), established his own production company at Universal with the intention of collaborating on a second Hitchcock production. Skirball also liked McDonell’s idea (presented to Hitchcock by the McDonells over a Brown Derby lunch) and it was purchased for production.

Joseph Cotten, unsure how a murderer should behave, consulted with Hitchcock about it. At Hitchcock’s suggestion they drove to Rodeo Drive, where Hitchcock told the actor to look at various men and figure out when he spotted a murderer. Hitchcock’s point, Cotten realised, was that a murderer looks and moves just like anyone else. Cotten recalled that, with the exception of the children’s dialogue, the entire screenplay was written by Thornton Wilder. “I cannot remember any shooting script that suffered so few alterations during production,” he reminisced. “All the actors agreed that the author’s words were not only easy to learn, but a pleasure to speak.” In actuality, Hitchcock had collaborated on the script, and Alma Reville (Mrs. Hitchcock) and magazine writer Sally Benson had done a script “polish.”

Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt (1943, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Not-so kindly uncle: Joseph Cotten is the devil in disguise; another

Searching for a real-life house to use in the movie, Hitchcock found just the right home in Santa Rosa. It fit the “middle-class dwelling on a middle-class street” description exactly. Unbeknownst to Hitchcock, the house’s owners wanted their place to look its very best on the screen. When Hitchcock arrived to photograph the house, he was chagrined to see that it had been renovated and repainted! Studio painters went to work “restoring” it to its former run-down look.

Interior scenes were shot on a soundstage. A New York Times set visitor marvelled at the set’s amazing adaptability to camera angles. “As the camera moves into, out of, and through the house to record the action, windows come apart, the porch stands aside, the roof bends over,” the Times writer reported. “What [the movie] boils down to is that villains are not all black and heroes are not all white,” Hitchcock said. “Uncle Charlie loved his niece, but not as much as she loved him. And yet she HAS to destroy him. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, ‘You destroy the thing you love.'” – PAL Universal DVDs (2001)