Review of Shadow of a Doubt (1943) by John H — 03 Jul 2008

Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) thought he could elude capture after an east coast murder spree by escaping to Santa Rosa, California, there to impose himself on his sister and her family. Little did he know that his favorite niece, also named Charlie (and played to perfection by Teresa Wright), would succeed in reading him like a book and figuring out what he was really all about. It's intriguing how many family members are avid readers and always with a nose in a book. All, that is, but the young Charlie, who spends her time reading her uncle instead and plotting on her own to get him out of the house before their world implodes.

Hitchcock shot this film on location in Santa Rosa and he does a brilliant job of capturing small-town WWII America. He does such a great job of this that columnist Bob Greene once wrote, in lamenting the passage of small town downtowns, that you could catch a glimpse of what they might have been by watching Hitchcock's classic. Don't miss this one.