…yet made of stars

“You live in a dream. Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses you’d find swine? The world’s a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?”

—Charlie Oakley, Shadow of a Doubt

Shadow of a Doubt has occasionally been described as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most nihilistic films, and this is a point I won’t argue with. In a sense, its lead antagonist, Charlie Oakley, embodies the very essence of film noir: hatred of self, a total lack of faith in societal establishments, hopelessly repressed sexuality. At the same time, however, the most interesting aspect of the film is speculating how different it would have been, were it made at a different time or in another place. One can’t help but shake the feeling that Hitchcock would have different things to show you—and different things to say—were his hands not tied by the Hays Production Code.

Hitchcock, though, is a director known for never tipping his hand—never showing you more than he wants to—and in that respect, Shadow of a Doubt fits into his canon very well. I won’t take the time here to argue the various advantages and disadvantages of the Code (the general consensus, for those of you who want to know, seems to be that the Code was misguided at best), but you could definitely make the case, if you wanted to, that it occasionally enhanced the effectiveness of the films that were made under it—or, more accurately, it enhanced the films of directors who were able to use it to their advantage.

Hitchcock, of course, was nothing if not able to play the angles, and the result is a film that’s unnerving and suspenseful for all the right reasons—partly in spite of the Code, and partly because of it. Teresa Wright stars as Charlie Newton, the oldest daughter in an “average family” (it is described in these exact terms several times throughout the film). She is paid a visit by her uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten), for whom she was named, and at first she’s overjoyed. She feels an intimate connection with Charlie, and everything seems right when he’s around—or at least it did, once. This time around, Uncle Charlie seems different. He’s nervous, he doesn’t want to be photographed, he’s tearing pages out of the newspaper and hiding them, and he’s constantly going on rants about how contemptuous widows are. Oh yeah, and he matches the description of the famed “Merry Widow Strangler.” Hmmm.

At this point, a lesser director would have sought to keep you guessing for as long as he could—the standard is-he-or-isn’t-he routine. Fortunately, Hitchcock spares us this bit of condescension. It’s never stated flat-out that Uncle Charlie is, in fact, the Strangler, but it’s more-or-less clear from the get-go. In other words, Shadow of a Doubt is a “suspense” film, but it’s not the overly-easy factual suspense you get from the average hack director (as in, for example, your average M. Night Shyamalan film); it’s a much more difficult and complex moral suspense—i.e., now that young Charlie knows the truth about her uncle (whom she greatly admires), what is she going to do about it? This works to keep you on the proverbial edge of your seat much more effectively than a standard yes/no question.

Shadow of a Doubt turns the standard noir bit on its head in other ways, as well—specifically in the genders of its lead characters. Noir has, underneath the surface, always been about Freud, but Shadow may be one of the few to so unabashedly look at the Electra Complex (the Oedipus Complex’s lesser-known female cousin). To say that there’s an unspoken sexual attraction between Charlie and her uncle is undoubtedly to state the obvious, but we can thank the Code for keeping it under the surface. The fact that it is unspoken and unconsummated makes it all the more unnerving—the scenes between the two Charlies seem ready to erupt into either sexual passion or angry violence (or both) at any moment. The fact that Hitchcock knew how to do this—without really saying or showing anything—is a tribute to his genius as a director. Shadow of a Doubt is a film that takes you to the edge and leaves you hanging there.