His train comes barreling towards town with smoke spewing ominously. Hitchcock playfully alludes to the fact by opening his film with the “Merry Widow Waltz” and it will pop up throughout the entire story if you’re paying attention. What we learn over time is that Charlie is known at large as the “Merry Widow Murderer,” because he has strangled three such women and taken their valuables. Santa Rosa, California, the peaceful abode of his older sister Emma and her family. Soon he learns two men want to talk with him, and he’s not about to get acquainted so he gives them the slip and heads to the one decent place he can think of. Dollar bills are scattered haphazardly across his floor. The story opens in a depressed urban city with Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten) laid out pensively on his bed. The inevitable that is plain as day, except not everyone sees it so clearly. It’s the cringe-inducing anticipation for what is bound to happen. That’s, in fact, a great deal of what Shadow of a Doubt is. If we take a slightly closer look it makes a great deal of sense as the film follows through with one of Hitch’s most prominent credos, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” And yet the famed “Master of Suspense” chose the often glossed over Shadow of a Doubt. V ertigo, Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Notorious, even The Birds. That’s quite a telling statement when you do a quick scroll through some of the titles up for contention. It is well documented that Shadow of a Doubt was Hitchcock’s personal favorite of his own films.
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