There, Charlotte “Charlie” Newton (Wright) is eagerly awaiting Uncle Charlie’s (Cotten’s character, who will be henceforth referred to as “Uncle Charlie” to disambiguate) arrival and is absolutely giddy at his charisma, generosity (most notably the scene where Uncle Charlie gifts Charlie a ring), and way with words.

The detectives (Macdonald Carey and Wallace Ford) pursuing Charlie have no clue of his appearance yet follow him out to Santa Rosa. We learn immediately that Charlie Oakley (Cotten) is fleeing from two detectives from New York to California on suspicion of being the “Merry Widow Murderer”. Shadow of a Doubt is an excellent, enthralling thriller from Alfred Hitchcock, who regarded it as his personal favorite film partly due to the fact he fostered a family-like atmosphere during shooting. Hitchcock, so adulatory of Wilder’s play, brought in Wilder to co-write the screenplay to Shadow of a Doubt – which itself is set in small town Santa Rosa, California (Santa Rosa, which is located an hour’s drive north of San Francisco, is no longer a small town and would not be the last time the Master of Suspense visited Northern California). Shadow of a Doubt, which stars Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten in the lead roles, would be his one wartime masterpiece and was inspired by Thornton Wilder’s stage play Our Town – adapted beautifully for film in 1940 and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Alfred Hitchcock had made his first American film three years ago with Rebecca and had already established himself as a brilliant artist and an entertainer with a murderous sense of humor.

Main actors of movie shadow of a doubt