Word: hitchcock
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Shadow of a Doubt (Universal) has the makings of a superb film: Alfred Hitchcock directed it; Thornton Wilder and Sally Benson helped write it; two of Hollywood's best young actors-Teresa Wright (Pride of the Yankees) and Joseph Gotten (The Magnificent Ambersons)-play in it. The result: a superb film...
...This Hitchcock masterpiece has the same general theme as his Suspicion (TIME, Nov. 17, 1941)-the slow, terrible growth of fear of a loved one. But Shadow, from beginning to end, is a surpassingly better picture. Its horror is compounded by its setting: an exquisitely commonplace family in a familiar small California town. Mama (Patricia Collinge) is a fluttery hen whose family has become too much for her. The kids have begun to read novels and spout homilies to their parents. Papa (Henry Travers) and his crony (Hume Cronyn) are detective-story fans who get together every night after supper...
Slowly the menace, seen through the girl's eyes, grows palpable, until the dull, homely old house itself seems terrifying. The girl becomes convinced, by circumstantial events, that her beloved uncle is a murderer, and that he wants to murder her. By skillful transfer of emotion, Director Hitchcock loads the most commonplace things with ominous overtones. A broken porch step, a cranky garage door, the cheerful family bickering at the dinner table, a traffic cop's scolding as the girl runs across a street to the library-these become major elements in building up a crescendo of terror...
Unlike Suspicion, Shadow hits few false notes, maintains suspense to the end. But good as Director Hitchcock and Actor Gotten are, the show is really Miss Wright...
...cinemystery - since the audience shares Meredith's amnesia, not only people but streets, windows, and noises can be loaded with cryptic threats. If those who made the picture had used these possibilities for all, instead of merely half, their worth, Street of Chance would have equaled Alfred Hitchcock's best scarifying tours-de-force. Street of Chance does not reach that high standard...