In the shadow of doubt
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | In the shadow of doubt |
| Original title | Shadow of a Doubt |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1943 |
| length | 108 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alfred Hitchcock |
| script |
Thornton Wilder Sally Benson Alma Reville |
| production |
Jack H. Skirball for Universal Pictures |
| music |
Dimitri Tiomkin Franz Lehár |
| camera | Joseph A. Valentine |
| cut | Milton Carruth |
| occupation | |
| |
Shadow of a Doubt is a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in the year 1943 .
The thriller starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten is based on a story by Gordon McDonell and is about a young woman who realizes that her beloved uncle is probably a serial killer.
In the Shadow of the Doubt, which Hitchcock himself called his favorite film, was listed in the National Film Registry in 1991 as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" .
action
Charlie Oakley is a tall, handsome man who carries loads of cash. When the police in New York are looking for him, he seeks rest and refuge with the family of his sister Emma Newton and her husband Joseph. They live with their three children in the quiet Californian town of Santa Rosa . Oakley not only shares a first name with his innocent but clever niece Charlie - they both feel emotionally connected. The family's joy over the visit of the rich uncle from the big city is initially unclouded, but Uncle Charlie occasionally attracts attention due to his strange behavior: he generally refuses to take photos of himself, hides newspaper clippings from the family and opens a bank account with a large sum. One day two men appear at the house allegedly working on a survey of American families and interviewing the Newtons. Uncle Charlie is furious when one of the men takes a picture of him. When Jack Graham - one of the two men - takes young Charlie out in the evening, he explains to her that he and his colleague are police officers and that they are tailing their uncle. Either her uncle or another suspect is the wanted murderer of at least three widows. From then on, doubts gnaw at Charlie, and she tries to discover her uncle's secret.
She spies on him and finds more and more clues. The initials of the ring that Uncle Charlie gave her match those of a murdered widow. In a newspaper article about the widow killer hidden by her uncle, she finds further evidence that Uncle Charlie could be the killer. While eating, he also speaks with barely concealed hatred of wealthy widows who lived only on the money of their deceased husbands and then stayed by the thousands in fine hotels. When young Charlie confronts him with the ring, he confides in her on an evening walk. She promises him not to report him to the police if he quickly disappears from town. She tries to be considerate of her unsuspecting mother, who loves her younger brother Charlie dearly and would probably be devastated if he were arrested. Shortly afterwards, however, the other suspect had an accident on the run from the police in an airplane propeller, so that the case seemed to have been settled for the police. Cop Jack Graham confides in young Charlie that he loves her and would like to marry her, and then leaves town.
However, Charlie knows of her uncle's guilt. So she urges him to leave Santa Rosa forever. He refuses and tries to murder his niece through two fictitious accidents; only coincidences save her life. Finally she gives him an ultimatum and he gives in. He wants to go to San Francisco - coincidentally on the same train as the rich widow Mrs. Parker, on which young Charlie is about to say goodbye to her uncle. Since she knows his secret, he tries again to murder her. A scuffle ensues, in the course of which he finally falls from the moving train in front of an oncoming train and dies. He is buried in Santa Rosa with the mourning community.
Young Charlie and Jack Graham have chosen to keep Uncle Charlie's secret.
background
- Not only unusual for Alfred Hitchcock, who loved working in the studio more than anything, but for the film work at the time in general, many recordings were filmed on a real set that was not built in the studio - less for practical or even artistic reasons, but above all for reasons through the war. A state war committee determined how much money could be spent building a movie set, and so savings were made by venturing into reality. Much of the film was actually shot in Santa Rosa , which was a small town with around 15,000 inhabitants in the 1940s; over 150,000 people now live there. Many extras were therefore not Hollywood extras, but residents of Santa Rosa. Ten-year-old Edna May Wonacott , who was given a bigger supporting role as a precocious sister, had never come into contact with acting before. The daughter of a local grocer was accidentally discovered by Hitchcock while she was waiting for the school bus.
- The Newton family home used in the movie still exists today at 904 McDonald Avenue, Santa Rosa. Initially, there were concerns that it might seem too luxurious for a bank teller's family. However, it turned out that the actual occupant of the house was in a similar financial situation as the film character. He was so happy that his house was going to be a movie location that he had it repainted. Hitchcock was appalled by this and had it repainted with "old" paint for filming; after the shoot it was given a new coat of paint.
- With Thornton Wilder , Hitchcock was able to win an extremely prominent writer for the script. That was unusual because well-known writers or playwrights tended to disregard working on screenplays for film at the time. Wilder had published the hit play Our Little City in 1938 , which Hitchcock was also very fond of. He wanted to create a similar small-town atmosphere for In the Shadow of Doubt . Thornton Wilder had initially accepted mainly because of the money, but after meeting Hitchcock he was also artistically convinced of the collaboration. Wilder even selected some of the locations in Santa Rosa before he was called up as a reporter for the Army in Florida because of World War II. The script was largely finished, but had to be adapted and refined during the shooting. Part of this work was done by Emma's mother Emma's actress, Patricia Collinge , who, as a long-time playwright , already had experience with writing. Among other things, she wrote the romantic garage scene between the girl Charlie and the policeman Graham. Your participation in the script is not mentioned in the opening or closing credits. A total of six writers were involved in the script, including Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville .
- Hume Cronyn made his film debut in the role of the shy neighbor Herbie. A long partnership developed between the actor and writer Cronyn and Hitchcock: Cronyn took on a role in The Lifeboat (1944) and wrote the scripts for Cocktail for a Corpse (1948) and Slave of the Heart (1949) - all of which were Hitchcock films.
- In conversations with François Truffaut , Hitchcock called Im Schatten des Doubt his favorite film among all of his works: “Because it was one of those rare occasions where the character study could be combined with tension. There is usually no time for character development in a tense story. ”The film is also considered one of his most personal works. There are numerous parallels to Hitchcock's life: for example the name of his mother, biographical experiences that he weaves into dialogues, or, according to Donald Spoto in his extensive Hitchcock biography, the fact that the two main characters (the two Charlies) have the finds both sides of Hitchcock's personality.
- The waltz used is lips are silent, violins whisper from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow is referred to in the film as the Merry Widow waltz. Over dinner, the family ponders who the melody is coming from. During the conversation, including the US composer are Victor Herbert and the waltz On the Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss mentioned.
- The usual German translation of the idiom shadow of a doubt is “Hauch eines Zweifels”.
synchronization
The German dubbed version of Im Schatten des Zweifels was made in 1969 by Interopa Film GmbH.
| role | actor | Dubbing voice |
|---|---|---|
| Charlie Newton | Teresa Wright | Dagmar Biener |
| Charlie Oakley | Joseph Cotten | Gert Günther Hoffmann |
| Detective Jack Graham | Macdonald Carey | Rainer Brandt |
| Father Joseph Newton | Henry Travers | Paul Wagner |
| Mother Emma Newton | Patricia Collinge | Edith Schollwer |
| Herbie Hawkins, neighbor of the Newtons | Hume Cronyn | Reinhold Brandes |
| Detective Fred Saunders | Wallace Ford | Gerd Duwner |
| Ann Newton | Edna May Wonacott | Philine Peters-Arnolds |
Remakes and tributes
The film was remade for television in 1991 under the title Shadow of a Doubt by director Karin Arthur. Mark Harmon and Margaret Welsh played the leading roles . The 2013 released film Stoker of Park Chan-wook also is about a mysterious "Uncle Charlie" who suddenly enters the life of a seemingly normal family, and was considered by film critics as an homage to Hitchcock's work.
Hitchcock's cameo
Hitchcock also made his cameo in this film : He is sitting on the train to Santa Rosa and plays cards with a doctor (played by Edward Fielding ), although Hitchcock seems to have clear advantages with all the spades in hand.
Awards
Gordon McDonell was nominated for an Oscar in 1944 for Best Original Story.
In 1991 the film was entered into the National Film Registry .
criticism
In the Shadow of Doubt , its release was a hit with both critics and audiences. It is generally considered a masterpiece by film reviews. With an average rating of 9 out of 10 stars, all 34 reviews on the US critic portal Rotten Tomatoes are positive.
“Interesting, well-played crime study that is not so much about the hunt for a gangster, but about the confrontation of a small-town middle class family with the crime. A film without criminological tension, which assigns the viewer the role of the ironically distanced observer. "
“Favorite film Hitchcock, which uses the thriller to transform the abandonment of a soul incapable of love into action. The precision of the representation pulls reality itself into the shadow of doubt. From 18. "
literature
- Paul Duncan, Jürgen Müller (Eds.): Film Noir, 100 All-Time Favorites , Taschen GmbH, Cologne 2014. ISBN 978-3-8365-4353-8 , pp. 98-103.
- Robert A. Harris, Michael S. Lasky, eds. Joe Hembus : Alfred Hitchcock and his films (OT: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock ) Citadel-Filmbuch from Goldmann, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-442-10201-4 .
- Donald Spoto: The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. Hopkinson and Blake, New York 1976, ISBN 0-911974-21-0 .
- François Truffaut : Mr. Hitchcock, how did you do it? . Heyne, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-453-86141-8 .
Web links
- Shadow of a Doubt in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- In the shadow of the doubt in the online film database
- In the shadow of the doubt in the German dubbing files
- Film review by U. Behrens, filmzentrale
- In the shadow of doubt on The Hitchcock Zone
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interview with Edna May Wonacott
- ↑ Shadow Of A Doubt film locations ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on movie-locations.com
- ↑ a b "In the shadow of doubt" at TCM
- ↑ In the shadow of doubt. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Shadow of a Doubt (1991) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Horror film Stoker: The Magic of Violence Spiegel Online
- ^ "Shadow of a Doubt" by Rotten Tomatoes
- ↑ In the shadow of doubt. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 181/1968
