In Shadow of a Doubt the humor on display is of the gentle type derived exclusively from the characters. The humor in Frenzy and Family Plot verges on the painful. It always seemed like such a dangerous risk to take.potentially sacrificing mood or suspense for the sake of interjecting some bit of levity.but his films always carry it off.

I've always been impressed by Alfred Hitchcock's ability to balance humor and terror in his films. Louis worked on the script for Shadow of a Doubt). (Both Thornton Wilder of Our Town and Sally Benson of Meet Me in St. Louis crossed with Orson Welles' noirish thriller The Stranger, then you have a pretty good idea of what a delightfully sinister mélange Hitchcock concocts in Shadow of a Doubt. If you can imagine Vincente Minnelli's small-town valentine, Meet Me in St.

His true nature also initiates a shattering coming-of-age for his adoring niece (Teresa Wright). It isn't long before Charlie reveals himself to be a true figure of evil his presence threatening to disrupt the conventional lives around him. A secretive, closed-off person whose misanthropic nature contrasts starkly with the open friendliness he displays to insinuate himself into the lives of his distant family and the townsfolk. Hitchcock to the left : Holding all the AcesĪs a thriller, it has a simplicity of plot that is near-irresistible: A beloved uncle with a dark secret (Joseph Cotten) visits his family in a small northern California town.

You can keep your Psycho, Vertigo, and Rear Window - classics all- but for me, there isn't a Hitchcock film that compares with Shadow of a Doubt. Decades before David Lynch turned his twisted lens on small-town perversity in the masterfully weird Blue Velvet, Alfred Hitchcock had already taken what I consider to be the definitive look at the pernicious effect of evil on small town life in Shadow of a Doubt.

Shadow of a doubt 1943 nominations