SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943) B/W 108m
w/Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Patricia Collinge, Henry Travers, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Edna May Wonacott, Charles Bates, Irving Bacon, Clarence Muse, Janet Shaw, Estelle Jewell
Gripping suspense film in the grand Hitchcock tradition. A niece (Wright) suspects her uncle (Cotten) of having a deep, dark secret. This thriller, the director's personal favorite of all his films, beautifully captures the small town WWII atmosphere. (Exteriors were filmed in Santa Rosa, California, which is the same part of the country Hitchcock returned to for VERTIGO and THE BIRDS). Screenplay co-written by Thornton Wilder, with Sally Benson and Alma Reville (Hitchcock's wife), from an original story by Gordon McDonnell. Uniformly good performances.
From The Movie Guide: "This is Hitchcock's most penetrating analysis of a murderer --- a masterful profile, aided by Cotten's superb performance, of a subtle killer who cannot escape his dark passions, despite a superior intellect. The film's construction is adroit and perfectly calculated, letting the viewer know early on just what kind of a man Cotten really is, but providing tension through Cotten's devious charade as a gentle, kind man deserving of his family's love --- a tension which fuels the chilling cat-and-mouse game between Cotten and Wright that provides the film's suspenseful center.
"Hitchcock took his time in making SHADOW OF A DOUBT, and the care shows. The director got Thornton Wilder to write the screenplay, assuming that the playwright who created 'Our Town' would be the perfect scenarist to bring the right kind of ambiance and characterization to the film's small, close-knit Santa Rosa. After consulting briefly with Hitchcock, Wilder wandered about Hollywood with a notebook, writing bits and pieces of the screenplay when he could. He and the director took their time developing the inticate story, and Wilder had not finished the screenplay when he enlisted to serve in the Psychological Warfare Division of the Army. To finish the script, Hitchcock boarded a cross-country train to Florida (where Wilder was to begin his training) with the writer, and patiently sat in the next compartment as Wilder periodically emerged to give him another few pages of copy. The great playwright finished the last page of SHADOW OF A DOUBT just as the train was coming to his stop, and he used the train upon which he and Hitchcock traveled as his model in creating the setting for the gripping finale."
Oscar nomination for Best Original Story (McDonnell).
Notes collected for a lecture on the film:
SHADOW OF A DOUBT: Hitchcock's favorite of all his films
REBECCA: a Selznick film as well as a Hitchcock film: an English film, at heart
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT & SABOTEUR: both films: thrillers with America as subject:
heroes: quintessentially American types: Joel McCrea, Robert Cummings
more "firepower" than in British thrillers:
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: innocent diplomat shot w/gun hidden in camera
SABOTEUR: starts with scene of horror: fiery death: explosion
these kinds of events: not found in British thrillers: but possible with Hollywood production methods
SHADOW OF A DOUBT: 1st American film that's equal of his greatest British films: contains what Hitchcock learned in Hollywood so far: plus has continuity with body of earlier work: the British films
SHADOW OF A DOUBT: genesis: 1938: novelist Gordon McDonell & wife Margaret:
couple on vacation in CA's High Sierra: had car trouble: in Hanford: Gordon got idea for story:
fugitive murderer coming home to visit his family: got to be joke in McDonell family:
"Uncle Charlie" spoken of as though he existed
4 years later: 1942: Margaret: then head of story department for Selznick:
Hitchcock told her he was looking for story: Gordon suggested "Uncle Charlie" to Margaret:
6-page treatment delivered to Hitchcock: different from final film
Hitchcock: anxious to avoid conventional small-town American scenes: not stock figures seen in so many films:
wanted chars to be very modern: influenced by movies, radio, juke boxes, etc.: "life in a small town lit by neon signs"
but didn't want these things to date film
Hitchcock: realized film would stand or fall by how convincingly it portrayed small town American folks:
offered contract to Thornton Wilder:1897 - 1975: very American playwright & novelist:
Wilder: arrived at studio within days from New York: started work on screenplay at once:
working in mornings with Hitchcock / sumptuous lunches: Hitchcock's weakness
afternoons: Wilder worked alone
when screenplay almost complete: Wilder had to report for Army duty in Washington DC:
AH went with him on train: screenplay for most part complete
Sally Benson:
playwright: hired wrote Junior Miss
provided additional dialog & realistic touches
script polished by Alma Reville: adding Hitchcock touches
SHADOW OF A DOUBT: production:
Hitchcock: normally preferred working in studio: he had more control: accustomed to large budget devoted to construction of sets
SABOTEUR: over $50,000 spent on sets
1942: midway thru US entry into WWII: government's War Production Board: placed $5000 ceiling on money spent on sets
Hitchcock's answer: to make most of film on actual locations: studio sets kept to minimum: location filming: very unusual at the time:
decided he would film beginning scenes in NJ: but most of story would be filmed in real CA town:
Hanford rejected: several other sites checked out: Santa Rosa chosen
Santa Rosa: about 13,000 population: built around central square: somewhat in New England manner:
city seemed like Norman Rockwell painting come to life
house of Dr. C.M. Carlson & family chosen as principal exterior setting: white 2-story frame house: 904 MacDonald Avenue:
Hitchcock: thought it too ostentatious for bank clerk's home: but he was overruled:
house: properly weathered, attractive, old-fashioned:
family had it painted before production began: had to be "dirtied up" for shooting
other locations in Santa Rosa: Bank of America building: both exterior & interior settings
telegraph office
abandoned church building: then being used as soldier's recreation center:
chosen so as not to hurt any religious feelings
railroad depot: full-grown oak tree planted: for "some artistic light & shade"
streets of Santa Rosa: main street shut down for 3 days
Highway 101: rerouted to avoid traffic noise
Chamber of Commerce used as casting office
locals used as extras: ministers, lawyers, a banker
locals used in prominent roles: 2 kids:
1. Estelle Jewel: Young Charlie's friend Catherine
2. Edna May Wonacott: age 10: Young Charlie's sister Ann: bookworm: personally coached by AH: her father grocer, too
SHADOW: filmed over late summer 1942: 4 weeks of principal photography
SHADOW OF A DOUBT:
mother
in the film:
Patricia
Collinge: plays part:
e.g., conversation
between Young Charlie & detective in garage
Hitchcock's
own mother dying in England when film made:
WWII America:
"good
mother":
also:
idealized image of American nation:
Thornton
Wilder
shooting
film in SR:
Robin Wood
quote: Hitchcock's Films Revisited: p 297:
"What is in jeopardy is above all the family --- but, given the family's central ideological significance, once that is in jeopardy, everything is. The small town (still rooted in the agrarian dream, in ideals of the virgin land as a garden of innocence) and the united happy family are regarded as the real sound heart of American civilization; the ideological project is to acknowledge the existence of sickness and evil but preserve the family from their contamination."
family
in film: open to & besieged by
at
time SHADOW made:
AH:
an outsider:
idealized
fantasies of small town
phenomenon of mistaken identity:
the double: theme Hitchcock uses:
a
literary device known since ancient times:
twin
images usually reflect good & evil
used
from time of Greek playwrights:
Shakespeare:
used doubles many times:
works
of German romantic fiction:
E.T.A.
Hoffmann’s Die Doppelganger (1822)
double:
also used in:
Edgar
Allan Poe’s William Wilson
Robert
Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Dostoyevsky’s The Double
Joseph
Conrad’s The Secret Sharer
complexion
of “the double” has changed during this century:
“Psychology
as we know it today, had its beginnings at the end of the 18th century and in
the 19th. The quest into the mind
is simultaneously the quest into the individuality and integrity of the self,
which can exhibit puzzling contradictions and obscurely understood drives and
impulses. It is not surprising,
then, that the theme of the double prominently appeared just when introspective
German Romanticism was nascent [about to be born] and that it continued to
appear along with the development of psychology into an independent discipline. Major wars and other extensive
disturbances of society are among those occasions which cause man to ask
himself fundamental questions about his identity --- an identity which he finds
existing on various levels or even in fragmentation.”
mirror
image of Poe’s William Wilson
mischievous
shadow in Anderson’s fairy tales
portrait
surrogate in Wilde’s Dorian Gray
latent
doubles: Dostoyevsky & Conrad:
similarities
are spiritual rather than physical:
these
doubles:
yet,
they are also fragments of one mind on psychological level
this
means: this type of double exists as a defense mechanism for the ego:
primarily
in moral conflicts
Otto
Rank: psychoanalyst:
“...
the most prominent symptom of the forms which the double takes is a powerful
consciousness of guilt which forces the hero no longer to accept the
responsibility for certain actions of his ego, but to place it upon another
ego, a double, ... the detached personification of instincts and desires, ...
once felt to be unacceptable, but which can be satisfied without responsibility
in this indirect way.”
so:
by using the double:
authors
can externalize & resolve moral tensions
world of double: in the realm of
the subconscious
nightmare world of the modern thriller:
obviously:
such an environment: world of double:
films
of German expressionists of 1920s & 1930s:
F.W.
Murnau, Fritz Lang, Carl Mayer, Edgar G. Ulmer:
U.F.A.: same
place where Hitchcock directed first films for Michael Balcon: 1925-6
German
expressionism grew up to be film noir:
clips
from his films would make accurate illustrations for a textbook on:
themes,
lighting, framing techniques of both movements:
Hitchcock’s films:
THE WRONG MAN:
VERTIGO: Kim
Novak plays 2 women: Madeleine & Judy:
many,
many latent doubles in Hitchcock’s work:
where
similarities are spiritual rather than physical
NORTH BY NORTHWEST / SHADOW OF A DOUBT / STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
also:
in addition to thematic doubling in these films:
paralleling
& reversing of scenes:
symmetry
of manslaughter scene, 2 scenes in Scotland Yard
Hitchcock’s use of double:
“There is a moral judgment in the
film. He’s [Uncle Charlie]
destroyed at the end, isn’t he? The niece accidentally kills her uncle. What it boils down to is that villains are not all black and
heroes are not all white; there are grays everywhere.”
so:
Hitchcock realizes that his world is not one of clear-cut moral alternatives:
“the
implication [is] that the protagonist, though he may not be guilty of the crime
he has been accused of, is indeed guilty of something.”
the
double manifests this ambiguity:
Hitchcock
purposely makes villains attractive for 2 purposes:
1st:
realistic:
2nd:
artistic:
audience
identification: central to Hitchcock’s work:
accounts
for high proportion of 1st person or subjective shots in films
accounts
for alternation of subjective & objective shots:
Hitchcock
has said: his primary appeal is emotional:
“Hitchcock
manipulates our desire to sympathize and identify. He plays malevolently on the audience assumption that the
character we sympathize with most, whose point of view we share, is the same
character who is morally right in the story the movie tells.”
if
that person is compromised during course of film:
“One
can point to the disturbing quality of so many Hitchcock films. ... Many refer
to this quality in Hitchcock but few try to account for it: How often has one heard that a certain
film is ‘very clever’ but ‘leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.’ This ‘nasty taste’ phenomenon has, I
believe, two main causes. One is
Hitchcock’s complex and disconcerting moral sense, in which good and evil are
seen to be so interwoven as to be virtually inseparable, and which insists on
the existence of evil impulses in all of us. The other is his ability to make us aware, perhaps not quite
at a conscious level (it depends on the spectator), of the impurity of our
desires. The two usually operate,
of course, in conjunction.”
Hitchcock
to Richard Schickel: “evil is complete disorder”:
Lindsay
Anderson: on typical Hitchcock plot:
“These
films gain a particular excitement from their concern with ordinary people (or
ordinary-looking people) who are plunged into extraordinary happenings in the
most ordinary places.”
Hitchcock
himself has remarked:
we’re
all afraid of dark streets & sinister locales:
but
who would be threatened in an empty rural cornfield or spotless white
motel bathroom?
ironically:
in these innocuous settings: true danger lurks:
Lawrence
Kane: “the terror of the familiar turned lethal”
icons
of stability: church in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: both 1934 & 1956 versions
state in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN & NORTH BY NORTHWEST
not
only insufficient to prevail vs. chaos:
along with characters with whom we identify:
audience
plunged into world of mirrors where nothing is what it seems:
alternation
of subjective & objective shots:
order
appears to be restored by end of film:
in
final analysis:
“Hitchcock
does not offer any solution to the anarchical madness presented in many of his
films. How does one defend oneself
against the protagonist of Psycho ---
by locking the bathroom door?”
Hitchcock
himself:
careful
pre-planning of every shot
shooting
most of his films in the studio
relying
heavily on process shots
that
way he can depend on environment remaining orderly & controlled
amid
chaos: innocent items can assume sinister significance:
emerald
ring: SHADOW OF A DOUBT
cigarette
lighter: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
locket:
VERTIGO
they
can assume a seemingly malevolent life of their own
Hitchcock:
often resorts to trickery with objects:
magnifier
props: gun in SPELLBOUND
Sarris: says these objects acquire weight of their visual correlatives in film:
they
represent more complex realities beneath film’s surface:
struggle
for power between characters
pervasiveness
of evil in their world
Hitchcock’s
use of editing:
thereby
illustrating & reinforcing fragmentation of chaos world
in
final analysis: this fragmentation:
Wilder:
b. 1897 - d.1975: The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Skin of Our Teeth,
Our Town: Wilder won Pulitzer Prize:
depicts
everyday routines in pre-WWI New Hampshire village:
3
periods shown in play:
but
Wilder elevates them to cosmic proportions
stage
manager: narrates & periodically participates in action
plot:
focuses on neighboring Webb & Gibbs families:
from
childhood thru his proposal & their marriage to
final
scene in graveyard:
Our Town: made into film in 1940:
5
Oscar nominations: including:
SHADOW OF A DOUBT: shot
on location in Santa Rosa to assure “realism”:
perverse “mirror image” of Our
Town:
doubles
in film: Uncle Charlie: Joseph Cotten
linked
by: family
relationship
identical
names
telepathy:
sending each other wires @ same time
Young
Charlie: often stresses their similarities
fact
that they react to things alike
that
they think same way
can
almost read one another’s thoughts
as
she finds out more about her uncle:
because
she can’t hide anything from him
Young
Charlie: seems innocent:
tries
to protect family: especially mother:
Raymond Durgnat: “even if evil doesn’t seek out the innocent, the innocent, being
Young Charlie:
she sends for him:
plays
game of one-up-manship w/family & friends
Hitchcock:
hints at repressed incestuous relationship between them:
climactic
confrontation: at top of back steps:
Uncle Charlie:
visually controls house’s front staircase
she
threatens him: “Go away or I’ll kill you myself”:
she’s
made spiritual compromise:
stooping
to Uncle Charlie’s methods to achieve her goal:
Young
Charlie: further compromises herself by agreeing to let him leave town:
freeing
him to kill more widows:
question:
how guilty is she?
Uncle
Charlie: 1 of Hitchcock’s “charming villains”:
we’re
given reasons to “excuse” his behavior:
childhood
head injury produced personality change
implication
that widows were worthless anyway
implication:
Uncle Charlie has been smothered & dominated
shot:
Young Charlie & mother: loom over him as he lies
killing
of widows: may be attempt to get some of his own back
SHADOW OF A DOUBT:
contains
some of Hitchcock’s best examples of technical doubling:
symmetry:
use term for arrangement of scenes, etc, but not for characters
2
establishing sequences: practically identical:
introducing
Uncle Charlie in city, Young Charlie in Santa Rosa
both
cases: progression from farthest to closest
camera
comes in thru bedroom windows:
only
difference: beds face opposite directions:
since
Uncle Charlie & Young Charlie become mirror images
structural
doubling continues thruout film:
2
scenes in church
2
scenes in garage
2
visits by police to house
2
meals
2
attempted murders
2
scenes @ railroad station
2
scenes in kitchen
2
scenes in a bar:
also
reverses earlier scene in kitchen when she gets ring
bar
scene: he demands ring back: in between: she’s found out re: him
Young
Charlie & waitress in bar: her classmate
Louise
contrasted to Young Charlie:
but
she reacts to Uncle Charlie in same way as Young Charlie:
“playback”
feeling to this scene:
Jack
Graham: acts as minor double for Uncle Charlie:
seems
as though Young Charlie will have to choose bet. them:
doubling
reinforced: by 2 scenes in garage:
obviously
linked to technical influences from German studios:
result
of doubling: disorienting to viewer: keeps us off balance
Albert
LaValley:
“Hitchcock
is not organizing our experience into structural systems, but rather using
structures to release a kind of absurdist logic in life. ... He makes life seem
dreamlike, its surface a thin crust over a substratum of fear, insecurity,
unconscious anxiety, and guilt. In
this dream world one character evokes another, one experience pulls together
threads of many past ones.”