Few directors have had as much critical (however posthumously), and financial success as Alfred Hitchcock. With over 60 film credits to his name, many of his films never fail to top favourite and consensus lists, while even some of his lesser known and appreciated work like I Confess (1953) and the Birds (1963) are heralded as masterpieces by niche communities (in this case Les Cahiers du Cinema, and the critical French community). With so many great films, for most of us it’s difficult to choose a clear cut favourite, and while Hitchcock himself lists Shadow of a Doubt as his favourite of his own work, I have no doubt this was tentative and conditional to mood.
The film is (arguably) the most noir of Hitchcock’s efforts, although it doesn’t quite fit into the genre. As with most of his work, he balances his dark sense of humour with the genuine thrills and the final product is an astonishing and thrilling portrait of the horror that lies in small town life. Uncle Charlie is more than a murderor as he represents everything that small towns feared in war stricken America. There is little hint a war is going on, except we know that Charlie is a veteran somehow and a brief interlude in a “seedy” bar that’s populated with drunk and virile soldiers. This is our first encounter with a darker side of the town that we were previously were unaware even existed. Uncle Charlie drags his niece inside despite her insistance that she would never go into a place like that, and it’s in this scene that we are truly sure of Uncle Charlie’s identity. He represents the cynisism of the city and the veteran that the towns people so fear, and yet they idolize him and ignore the depracity that’s just around the corner.
In Young Charlie we find a heroine unlike any other in a Hitchcock film, Theresa Wright doesn’t even look the part of the icy, sophisticated woman. Rumour was though, that initially Hitchcock wanted Fontaine for the role to reprise her nervous incarnation of conflicted young woman. I’m happy things didn’t work out. Wright brings the necessary confidance to the role that was needed to better parallel her character with her uncle. They are supposed to be similar, and that means she had to be strong (this also serves as an important contrast though, as she is stronger than her Uncle in that she can look past the ugliness of the world, and appreciate what makes it wonderful). It makes her confrontations with her uncle all the more tense, as we know how strong she is, inside and out, and to see her voice waver and tremble as she tries to match her Uncle’s threats would not have had the same impact had she been a more feeble character.
Having seen this rather recently, and for the third or fourth time I truly had a chance to appreciate Hitchcock’s subtle but powerful use of mise-en-scene and cinematography. The camera is in almost constant movement as it swerves around corners and tracks down streets. I had never noticed it before, but it really works to create a sense of anxiety and restlessness that’s so important to the mood of the film, and Uncle Charlie’s character and influence.
