Shadow of a Doubt

When young Charlie is reading the newspaper in the library, the camera casts a shadow on her back.

In the beginning of the film, when the landlady enters Uncle Charlie's room, he is lying on the bed with his hands crossed on his belly holding a cigar.

For a moment he appears with his hands and the cigar on his chest.

When Uncle Charlie leaves his room, the two men outside follow him.

A shot from above shows them with very short shadows, showing that is around noon.

They separate for a short while and when they meet, their shadows are much longer, though not enough time has passed for it to be that much later.

Near the beginning of the movie, Ann answers the phone when the telegraph office calls.

She delivers all her responses without pausing long enough to allow the caller to respond.

When Charlie examines the ring at the library, the manner the ring is held in the closeup is not the same as immediately before or after.

While Charlie watches the cab take her family to Uncle Charlie's speech, the shadows of crew members are visible against the bushes in the background.

- PLOTWhen Young Charlie finds she's locked in the garage with the car's engine running, she might reasonably have gone back to the car and broken out through the door with the car driven in reverse.

In the first scene at the Newton house, Ann's collar gets flipped up while she is standing to answer the telephone.

In the next close up shot of her on the telephone, her collar is back in place.

When Charlotte Newton is talking to her father from her bed, her father switches from standing in the doorway to leaning against the door frame in between shots.

When Mrs.

Newton is going to the telephone to inquire about the telegram, her left arm reaches for the wall and in the next shot reaches again.

When Uncle Charlie first greets the Newton family at the train station, Charlotte's arm is around Ann's shoulders but switches to her side in a close up and switches again to being on her shoulders.

The shadows on the wall vary during the scene when Mrs.

Newton is telling Uncle Charlie about the reporters.

When Charlotte and Charlie cross the street to go to the bank, the street corner is empty.

In the next shot, there are many people on the same corner.

The train carrying Uncle Charlie to Santa Rosa, at first has a number 140 on the side and on a tag in front.

As it pulls into the station, the front tag has disappeared, and the number on the side has changed to 142.

At the first dinner in the Newton home, Young Charlie is humming the "Merry Widow Waltz," she identifies it as the work of Victor Herbert.

It was written by Franz Lehar, but no one disagrees with the Herbert attribution.

When Charlie is leaving the bank president's office Mr.

Green is in the background standing behind his desk.

He is striped with venetian blind shadows and his chair has a low rounded back.

A moment earlier a close up of Mr.

Green shows no such shadows and his chair has a high squarish back.

When the detective returns young Charlie home, her father and his friend can be seen walking around the veranda but young Charlie meets them along the garden path.

Take Hitchcock. Get his list of movies in which he directed.

Despite the fact that I'm a very big fan of Hitchcock's works (Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo are some of my favourite movies of all time) I must say I never got interested in watching Shadow Of a Doubt but one morning I finnaly decided that it was time to watch it and got simply blown away. The film is spectacular with great acting, I especially love Charlie (the uncle) who delivers an amazing and even scary (when we get the confirmation that he is indeed an assassin) performance.

During the 1940s, Hitchcock made a LOT of films about mysterious characters with possibly sinister intentions (usually starring the likes of Gregory Peck or Cary Grant). SHADOW OF A DOUBT is my favourite of these so far, a gripping and intelligent mystery in which a bright young girl's kindly Uncle Charlie may in fact be much more than he at first seems.

This is my all-time favorite Alfred Hitchcock film. The acting is superb.

To begin with, I am updating my review to reflect the fairly recent Blu Ray edition of this film. Is it better?

I was hooked from the beginning when I read the plot, and the movie was built up well. Boy, I'm never good at pointing out the good things in the review.

One of the best movies by Hitchcock, although not one of the most famous. Quite good triller, that perhaps begins better than it ends.

It's my favorite movie from Alfred Hitchook. I loved and enjoyed every moment of this movie.

There's something extra sinister about this tale of lost innocence in a sleepy little California town. The dramatization and fictionalization of a real life killer takes what could have been completely standard tropes and twists them an extra degree or two by adding in an element of familial loyalty that makes the situation more than just another tale of grizzly murder.