merry widow's waltz shadow of a doubt clip

Oakley is a serial killer who targets wealthy widows. This danger comes from a former resident, Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotton). Maybe this gave Hitchcock an added sense of pleasure in portraying the world of his own childhood being endangered. (Curiously the movie was a box office failure, but it has become a popular Hitchcock movie since.)

Like Ann Newton, he read Ivanhoe, and like Uncle Charlie he had a bicycle accident when he was young. Some of the characters are named after his own family members. Indeed there are autobiographical hints here. In the town of Santa Rosa, innocence is threatened by evil, and the values of an idealised but insular town are confronted by the darker nihilistic values of a corrupt outer world.Īlfred Hitchcock is on record as saying that Shadow of a Doubt was his favourite of the movies that he made. In the case of Shadow of a Doubt it is the presence of a murderer. It might be from bodysnatchers or a giant blob, or it might be from human agents – from warped businessmen (It’s a Wonderful Life), or Nazi infiltration (The Stranger). Joan Cusak and William H Macy as her parents.Small town life is a frequent subject in old movies, often mocked, often idealised, and often under threat from a whole variety of sources. Tim Robbins as uncle Charlie, can you imagine? Natalie Portman as his niece. Using Thornton Wilder's original script as the Bible, Steven Sodebergh could do scrumptious remake for the new millennium. I've been toying with the thought of a remake, I've been doing this lately, although I hate the idea of remakes of great movies, this one is one of those that in the right hands could have a real impact. I've seen 'Shadow of a Doubt' 3 or 4 times but every time you're forced to take the trip with the same amount of commitment. Brilliant, because in Joseph Cotten's eyes we find his need for redemption or are we falling in the trap of this master manipulator? We are torn, just like Teresa Wright. Teresa Wright's eyes tell the whole story from the audience's point of view, even if the audience is one step ahead of her. The scenes between Henry Travers and Hume Cronyn are how I imagine the story meetings between Thornton Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock. Patricia Collinge's performance is so spot on that you're longing for more.

The structure is Our Townish, the characters, deliciously rich. Thornton Wilder was Hitchcock's partner in crime this time and it shows. Uncle Charlie's urbanity becomes his most frightening feature. Joseph Cotten is the perfect charming monster. I mistrusted the uncle thing as a term of endearment ever since.

Merry widow's waltz shadow of a doubt clip