The charming story of a sweet young girl, her charming uncle, and the dirty little secret they share. Of course, that secret is murder, but the relationship between Charlie and her Uncle Charlie is so loaded with incestuous subtext that the murders of the widowed women seem a lesser offense somehow. The movie itself makes no secret of the bond between the two; Charlie babbles on about telepathy early on, and in their introductions, each sits on a bed on opposite coasts, facing the other. Clearly these two are twins, in a literary sense; they even seem to share the same sub-Nietzschean philosophy (even though they draw radically conclusions from it). But there's more to it than that. What about such scenes as Charlie and Uncle Charlie stopping to chat with her girlfriends, the young women ogling the Uncle like he's Charlie's new catch? Or the scene in the sleazy bar, which makes them look like a pair of illicit lovers? (No doubt that's what the waitress thinks they are.) And then, near the end, once she is sure that he is the Merry Widow Killer, she refuses to blow the whistle on him, for fear of the impact it would have on her family and the community. For me, it's this moment that the subtext overpowers the text and warps it away from believability; although Hitchcock takes pains to establish the genteel Santa Rosa community and Charlie's strong family ties, ultimately I don't buy that Charlie wouldn't turn him because of these social elements. It's her guilt, her percieved complicity, that keeps her silent.
That Hitchcock could get away with this kind of stuff in '43 is mind-blowing; no wonder he considered it his favorite. But it's not his best. I first saw this movie as a teenager, and I didn't like it, considering it the most boring Hitchcock I'd seen (and that's counting The Birds). I realized that the problem then is the same reason I find it fascinating now: the story is pretty basic and there's little of that classic Hitchcock tension (the garage scene doesn't cut it), but it gets its energy from the twisted relationship of its leads and the interesting way Hitchcock shows this relationship with the camera, stuff that totally flew over my head back in the day. Unfortunately, that (and the great performances) are all it really has going for it. The romantic subplot featuring Macdonald Carey and his weird hair is both improbable and boring. The debates on the best way to murder between Henry Travers and Hume Cronyn (who, judging from this, was the Bob Balaban of his day) are amusing, but as counterpoint to main story, it's unnecessary.
But again, it gets all the mileage it needs from its central conflict. Joseph Cotten is fantastic as Uncle Charlie; I don't know enough about his history with Welles, but if I didn't know better, I'd say he was doing a bit of a Welles impersonation here. And Teresa Wright does a great job portraying a smart young woman who becomes cognizant of the darkness that lurks outside the comfort of her family's house.
In fact, there's a definite David Lynch quality to the proceedings (the above sentence could describe Blue Velvet), so much so that I wonder if it was a big influence on him. Not to mention one of Shadow of a Doubt's key images, one that often acts as bridge between scenes: twirling dancing couples in what appears to be a ballroom setting, a strange and dream-like image that is never literally explained in the movie proper. Every time I saw it, I thought of the opening swing dance in Mulholland Drive and all the lost hopes and dreams it represented.
Where we saw it: dvd | We deign to rate it: outta 100