Shadow Of A Doubt Details

Alfred Hitchcock's personal favourite of his own movies begins when a train, belching out a cloud of ominous black smoke, pulls into Santa Rosa, California. Joseph Cotten has arrived and is met by his adoring niece, Teresa Wright. Both are called “Charlie”. She is pumpkin-pie innocence; he is a suave killer, wanted back east for relieving widows of their wealth and their lives. Although Hitchcock blurs the line between good and evil (endorsing Cotten's outbursts against the cosy complacency of the town), the two Charlies are inevitably pitched against each other as suspicion increases and the police start nosing around. The movie may lack the show-off set pieces that Hitchcock turned into his trademark, yet its tension never falters.

Complex, emotionally charged film that catches the confusion of a child caught between reality and fantasy, in a situation too difficult for her to deal with; it tackles its difficult subject-matter without sensationalism, concentrating on the love-hate r