Review of Shadow of a Doubt (1943) by Spencer R — 08 Jul 2008

Joseph Cotten, what an amazing actor! He is so believable as Charlie Oakley that it is scary. I feel that he is one of the most missed out actors of the really great ones. To me, this is some of his best work.

You see him in Citizen Kane, and The Magnificent Ambersons prior to this and Gaslight, Since You Went Away, Duel in the Sun, and THE THIRD MAN after this and he is convincing and extremely good in all these roles.

But in all these movies he plays a character rather on the good side of the line. This remains the only movie that I have seen of his earlier career where he plays a villain. And a very cold hearted, hateful and evil villain at that.

He is so good at it after seeing this movie I looked at the production pictures under the bonus material and still connected him as that evil Uncle. He portrays this character so dead on it is really a treat.

Now although this is Hitchcock's favorite film and quite a wonderful story and there are a lot of really neat things about this movie like his use of deep focus and tracking shots through door ways, this is not in my opinion his best.

This is only his fifth movie in the states. Now all his movies, in my opinion, rank far above even the best of other directors. But some of his movies are just better than some of his others. To me, his first great one was Notorious, then Strangers on a Train, then Rear Window, then Vertigo and then Psycho, in chronological order.

I highly recommend this film but you might want to check out one of these films first. North by Northwest is great as well.