The Path to Painful Knowledge in 'Shadow of a Doubt'

The Two Charlies: Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead.

Among Hollywood directors of the classic era, there was probably no greater "pre-planner" than Alfred Hitchcock, who often said that working out a film in his mind and on paper was the most gratifying part of his cinematic process. It was a method well suited to the memorable set pieces we so frequently find in his work: the assassination amid a sea of umbrellas in Foreign Correspondent, the runaway carousel in Strangers on a Train, the assault by crop duster in North by Northwest, the shower murder in Psycho, the avian attacks in The Birds, and many more. In such scenes, Hitchcock's attentiveness to composition, staging, editing, shot duration, the interplay and clash of camera movement and stasis, and the use of sound (both music and auditory effects) are readily apparent, even, I suspect, to many casual observers. But the Master of Suspense was equally conscious of method in the less extravagant scenes that were key to the overall coherence of his films. Hitchcock's oeuvre brims with countless scenes and sequences—and not just obviously virtuosic ones—which, when broken down shot by shot, yield a wealth of edifying details that can enrich one's understanding of the work as a whole. That's the sort of analysis I propose to do here.

My example comes from the film Hitchcock sometimes claimed as his favorite: 1943's Shadow of a Doubt. Co-scripted by the celebrated playwright Thornton Wilder, the movie—"whose meticulous craft and ideological richness," writes Diane Negra, "warrant the placement of it at or near the center of the Hitchcock canon"—dramatizes the intrusion of evil into the life of a small-town family.[1] On the run from police on the East Coast, Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten), a serial killer who targets rich widows, seeks refuge in the Santa Rosa, California, home of his older sister, Emma Newton (Patricia Collinge). Arriving by train, he's greeted with open arms by the Newton family, especially his eighteen-year-old niece and namesake, Charlie (Teresa Wright), who idolizes him (fig. 1). She's captivated by the life of glamour and adventure she thinks he's led; and, to be sure, he is a man of considerable suavity and charm. However, various circumstances—the arrival of two detectives, Graham and Saunders (Macdonald Carey and Wallace Ford), plus several disturbing and suspicious actions by "Uncle Charlie" himself—gradually lead the niece to the truth. While she doesn't betray him to the detectives because she knows that doing so would devastate her emotionally fragile mother, she does try to convince him to leave town. He balks, however, and to protect himself, he tries twice to murder her. Finally, while fending off a third attempt on her life, Charlie pushes him from a moving train to his death.

Fig. 1: The Newton family meets Charles at the Santa Rosa train station.

* * *

Appearing about one hour into the 108-minute movie, the sequence I've chosen for formal analysis is a crucial one because it culminates with the moment when Charlie confirms the terrible truth about her uncle, a revelation that destroys her innocence and sets her on a mission to rid her home of his malignant presence. But, first, for us to fully appreciate it in all its resonance and nuance, it's necessary to identify a number of important details from the scenes preceding it. They are:

• "The Merry Widow Waltz." Franz Lehár's 1905 composition is first heard during the opening credits, which are superimposed over footage of dancing couples in formal dress (fig. 2). The Russian-born composer Dimitri Tiomkin's score for Shadow incorporates variations of the waltz throughout the film, and the dancing-couples footage is also repeated at key junctures, as I'll discuss below.

Fig. 2: Credit sequence with waltzing couples. The music we hear is Lehár's "The Merry Widow Waltz." 

• Telegrams, Telepathy, and "Jumping" Tunes. World-weary and possibly suicidal at the start of the movie, Charles lies fully clothed on a bed in a seedy Philadelphia boarding house. Loose cash is scattered about the room—we gather, as the film progresses, that he's stolen it from his victims—but he's utterly indifferent to it. After his landlady informs him that two men downstairs are asking about him, he seems to gain a new sense of purpose and goes outside, deliberately brushing past the men (who we later learn are detectives) and quickly eluding them. He then telegrams his sister in Santa Rosa about his plans to visit her and her family, a decision that has obviously lifted his spirits. Meanwhile, across the continent, his niece Charlie also finds herself in the doldrums—and lying fully clothed on a bed. She seeks a "miracle" to save her family from the "awful rut" they're in and decides that summoning her uncle via telegram is exactly what's needed. Arriving at the telegraph office, she learns that he's already sent a message about his impending visit, a coincidence she attributes to "mental telepathy." Ecstatic, she heads back home, saying to herself, "He heard me! He heard me!" Later, after Charles has settled into the Newton house, the telepathy theme returns, joined with the waltz motif. After a key scene between the two Charlies (more on that in a moment), we again see the couples from the credits sequence waltzing to Lehár's melody. In the next shot, Charlie is setting out dessert at the family dinner table and humming the tune. "I can't get [it] out my head," she says, but just as she remembers its title—"I know what it is. It's 'The Merry . . .' "—a visibly unnerved Charles overturns a glass to distract her. Charlie thinks that the tune has somehow "jumped" into her head from someone else's. (This might explain the shot of the waltzers: Is that an image in Charles's mind that has leaped into Charlie's?)
• The Traffic Cop, the Courthouse, and the Bank. Before introducing us to Charlie and her family, Hitchcock includes a few brief shots establishing the "wholesome" atmosphere of Santa Rosa, where much of the film was actually shot. These include footage of a smiling policeman (Earle S. Dewey) directing schoolchildren safely through a busy intersection—an image straight out of Norman Rockwell. We see the cop again when Charlie escorts her uncle to the bank in downtown Santa Rosa where her father, Joe (Henry Travers), works as a teller. (Charles deposits his ill-gotten gains there.) Prominently featured in the background of the shots are the imposing Sonoma County Courthouse—though not identified in the dialogue, it's clearly a government building with its classical columns, expansive façade, tall windows, and limestone construction—and the four-story bank itself, which is topped by an ornate clocktower. The policeman and the buildings are emblems of law, government, and finance, all institutions that underpin the American social order and which Charles openly mocks and disdains. "[Money's] a joke to me," he says inside the bank. "The whole world's a joke to me."
• The Newton Family. Joe Newton is affable and unpretentious, if somewhat ineffectual, while Emma, though devoted to her family, is nostalgia-prone, cherishing the childhood memories that preceded her marriage, a time when she felt more fully herself. Those memories also inform her idealized view of her brother, which blinds her to his disturbing attitudes and behaviors. In addition to Charlie, the offspring include her two younger siblings, Ann and Roger (Edna May Wonacott and Charles Bates). Ann is a precocious, bespectacled, ten-year-old bookworm, while Roger, the youngest, is inclined toward numbers. Charlie herself is a former debate team champion, whose father proudly says of her, "Smartest girl in her class at school."
• The Emerald Ring. On his first evening in Santa Rosa, Charles hands out gifts to the family at the dinner table—a fur stole for Emma, a wristwatch for Joe, toys for the younger children. He follows Charlie into the kitchen to present her gift, an expensive emerald ring. Examining it, she discovers an inscription: "T.S. from B.M." Previously unaware of the engraving, Charles says, "Well, I've been rooked. The jeweler rooked me." When he offers to have the inscription removed, Charlie insists on keeping the ring as is: "No, no. I like it this way. Someone else was probably happy with this ring. Oh, it's perfect this way." Incidentally, this is the scene, mentioned above, in which the dancing-couples footage, accompanied by "The Merry Widow Waltz," is first reprised. It shows up just after the gifting of the ring, separating that scene from the return to the dining room, where Charlie hums the tune.
• The Newspaper. After dinner, Charles takes special pains to conceal a newspaper item from the others. Using the ruse of "making a house" from Joe's paper for Ann's amusement, he conceals a couple of pages in his jacket pocket. Charlie finds them, imagining that they contain some "wonderful" article about her uncle that he, presumably out of modesty, doesn't want them to see. But before she can check the pages, Charles angrily grabs them away from her and fiercely seizes her by the arms. "Uncle Charlie, you're hurting me," she protests. He relents, turning on the charm again and telling her that the paper simply contains some ugly gossip about someone he once knew. This volatile outburst is the most unsettling of the strange behaviors indicating that something isn't right about Charles.
• Neighbor Herb. The Newtons' socially awkward next-door neighbor, Herb Hawkins (Hume Cronyn), is a frequent visitor to the household and the movie's main source of comic relief. He and Joe are fans of crime stories, both fictional and nonfictional, and enjoy proposing different scenarios in which one murders the other. Thus, even in the lighter moments that these exchanges offer, the film reminds us that darker forces are also present.
• Detectives Graham and Saunders. The two investigators (who are not the same pair we see Charles eluding in the film's opener) ingratiate themselves into the Newton home by posing as researchers for "The National Public Survey"; they say they want to interview the Newtons as representatives of "an average American family." Instantly seeing through their charade, Charles wants no part of it. When Saunders snaps his picture, he demands to have the film, insisting sharply that he's never had his picture taken and never wants it taken. Again, as with the newspaper episode, this one reveals the odd, volatile impulses that Charles seems unable to suppress.
• The Layout of the Newton House. Throughout the early scenes, Hitchcock carefully acquaints us with the various spaces within the family's home. Downstairs, of course, are the living room, kitchen, and dining room. But more important for my purposes is the upstairs area. This is where we find Charlie's bedroom, which she's given over to her uncle's use, and Ann's adjoining bedroom, where she's taken up temporary residence. Also important are the exterior backstairs, accessible via a second-floor backdoor.
• The Truth about Graham. The handsome younger detective asks Emma to let him "borrow her daughter" for the evening so that she might better acquaint him with Santa Rosa. There's obvious romantic chemistry between him and Charlie, who seem to be enjoying themselves until Charlie confronts him: "I know what you are, really. You're a detective. . . . You lied to us." Admitting the truth, Graham reveals that he and Saunders are after a man who might be her uncle, although another suspect is being pursued in New England as well. Notably, he doesn't tell her what sort of crime is involved, but he makes her promise that she won't reveal anything to anyone about their conversation. Although Charlie says she can't believe her uncle might be a criminal, she's plainly distraught by Graham's revelation. The seeds of doubt, already planted by Charles's odd words and actions, have begun to sprout roots.

"It's going to be funny when you find out you're wrong," Charlie tells Graham, not very convincingly, when he takes her home. Before entering the house, she peers through the front window, where she sees Emma listening intently as her adored younger brother holds forth on some topic between puffs on his trademark phallic cigar (fig. 3). Turning away in distress, Charlie encounters her father and Herb. "You better run in now," Joe says. "Your uncle Charlie's been asking about you." Claiming fatigue, Charlie says she doesn't feel like talking and heads for the backstairs to avoid her uncle. 

Fig. 3: Emma and Charles.

After Charlie leaves, the camera lingers for a moment on a two-shot of Herb and Joe, who are in the middle of one of their amusing murder scenarios (fig. 4). In this particular exchange, Herb asks Joe whether he noticed anything odd-tasting about his coffee that evening. When Joe says no, Herb reveals that he "put a little soda [in it]. About the same amount that I'd have used if I wanted to use poison." Joe suggests that while he didn't notice the soda, he might have noticed the poison. Herb scoffs: "Notice the soda more than you would the poison. Ha! For all you knew, you might just as well be dead now!"

Fig. 4: Joe and Herb discuss murder by poisoning.

And this brings us to that sequence I've chosen to analyze in detail. It consumes five minutes and twenty-three seconds of screen time and comprises thirty-two shots, which are linked together by precise continuity cutting that maintains a strong, coherent sense of space. I've included plenty of screen captures, but you can also watch it on YouTube by clicking here. (Be warned, however, that the image quality is inferior.) Also, after my formal analysis, I'll briefly discuss the remainder of the movie and how the events in the sequence bear upon it.

From the conversation between Joe and Herb, Hitchcock cuts to a wide shot of Charlie in the upstairs hallway; she has just come up the back steps (fig. 5). She walks from the curtained backdoor to pause at the doorway of Ann's room, which she's been sharing. She glances downstairs, where Charles remains with her mother, and then, with quick determination, she turns to the doorway of her own room, which Charles is now using (fig. 6). Cut to the interior of the darkened bedroom; Charlie enters and (with the camera tilting and panning to follow her movement) goes directly for the wastebasket. She kneels and rummages through it (fig. 7). We quickly realize that she's searching for the discarded newspaper pages that Charles had tried to hide from her. She thinks they contain evidence that will either exculpate or, in her worst fear, incriminate her uncle.

Fig. 5: Charlie in the upstairs hallway.

Fig. 6: Moving to the doorway of her room.

Fig. 7: Searching the wastebasket.

Unsettled by her conversation with Graham, Charlie has begun her quest to find out the truth about Charles; in fact, that's what this entire sequence is about. Appropriately, as we shall see, it's a sequence built around movement—from Point A, to Points B, C, and D, and finally to Point E. It's a suspenseful little journey Charlie takes and might even be labeled an action sequence, though it has none of the violent spectacle we usually associate with that term. (A crop-duster attack it most definitely is not.)

As William Rothman notes, the cut from Joe and Herb chatting about poison to the shot of Charlie upstairs "is ironically charged (we can taste the poison in it): Charlie on top of the landing, small and vulnerable in the frame with the silhouette of the stairpost in the center."[2] And, in the next shot, note the noirish lighting and prominence of the stairway balustrade behind Charlie. The balusters suggest prison bars; and indeed, as the film progresses, Charlie's home will feel more like a prison to her the longer her psychopathic uncle stays there.[3]

From the darkness of the bedroom, where secrets might be hidden, we return to the light of the upstairs hallway (fig. 8). This time, however, the stairway post and balustrade figure even more prominently in the shot, dominating the foreground; and Charlie, with her back to us and her overcoat draped over her shoulders (the weight of the world?), seems even more vulnerable than before. Having retrieved some fragments of newspaper, she steals another quick glance downstairs, goes to the entrance of Ann's bedroom, and starts to open the door. Hitchcock cuts on her action—the edits are all impeccably timed and matched—and takes us into the fully lit interior of Ann's room, where the girl lies beneath the covers of a twin bed, reading a book, something she's rarely seen without (fig. 9). Charlie enters, closing the door behind her.

Tiomkin's music helps create the foreboding tone: It has a distinctly sinister quality as it accompanies Charlie from the hallway into her room and the wastebasket and back out again. By the time Charlie reaches Ann's doorway, a grim version of "The Merry Widow Waltz" is detectable on the soundtrack.

Fig. 8: Back in the hallway, Charlie goes to Ann's door.

Fig. 9: Entering Ann's room, she finds her sister still awake.

The visit to her own bedroom in search of discarded evidence marked Point A in Charlie's quest; her movement into Ann's bedroom marks Point B. As the shot continues—and this fifty-five-second scene will play out entirely in one shot—Charlie tosses her overcoat aside (a partial unburdening?), questions Ann about her not having gone to sleep yet, and takes a seat on the twin bed in the foreground, the one she's been using while Charles occupies her room. The camera dollies in to frame her more tightly as she spreads out the wastepaper she's retrieved. Curious, Ann arises from her own bed, joining her sister in a medium two-shot (fig. 10). "Charlotte, what are you doing?" she asks. (This is one of the few instances when Charlie is addressed by her actual forename instead of its diminutive.) The music, while it doesn't stop entirely, does become quieter and less sinister as Ann and Charlie converse.

Fig. 10: What is "Charlotte" doing?

The shift in the music, the framing, and the dialogue all indicate the familiar bond between the sisters, although there's a layer of deception on Charlie's part. As she combs through the bits of newspaper, she insists that she's only looking for a recipe but can't seem to find it. "They have newspapers at the libary [sic], new ones and old ones," Ann informs her, with endearing mispronunciation. "Miss Corcoran will get them out for you. She won't even notice if you cut out a little bitty recipe." Charlie's eyes subtly light up, and glancing at her watch, she asks her sister when the library closes. "If you read as much as you should," Ann says, "you'd know that it closes at nine." Ann, as we've already witnessed, is inclined to "correct her elders" (Emma's words in a later scene); and the mild upbraiding she gives Charlie about her reading habits will be the first of several reprimands, both verbal and visual, that Charlie will receive from others as the sequence plays out.

Ann gets back into bed, while Charlie feigns a lack of interest in visiting the library. "Oh well, if I think about it, maybe I'll go tomorrow," she says, wadding up the newspaper fragments and heading for the door (fig. 11), the camera following her movements. Before leaving the room, she delivers her own gentle, sisterly admonition: "You really ought to go to sleep, Ann." Charlie's concern for her younger sibling foreshadows a growing protectiveness she will show toward her family after she's confirmed the threat that her uncle poses. And though Charlie is trying to behave normally, we notice—even if Ann doesn't, since she's returned to her book—a new determination in the young woman's body language.

Fig. 11: Charlie leaves Ann to her book.

Cut to the hallway again (fig. 12). As the music swells dramatically, Charlie hurriedly makes for the backdoor and exits. Through the thin curtains we see her starting down the backstairs (fig. 13). Unlike in the compositions we saw in figs. 5, 6, and 8, Charlie is now framed more dominantly, with the stairway post positioned at the far right side of the frame, much less noticeable than before. She now seems intent on taking control of the situation and finding out the truth. In her secretiveness about what she's up to, she's keeping her promise to Graham not to tell anyone that her uncle is a criminal suspect of some sort. But what sort exactly? That question is more than she can bear, so she's now investigating on her own.[4]

Fig. 12: Charlie makes for the backdoor.

Fig. 13: Through the curtained window, we see her turn toward the exterior stairs.

With Tiomkin's music becoming increasingly frenetic, we next see Charlie rushing down the stairs from a straight-on angle (fig. 14). In a complex and nicely executed maneuver, the camera tilts and pans with her as she reaches the landing and makes a quick turn toward screen right to descend another few steps; then, with her feet on solid ground, she turns sharply toward screen left (fig. 15). At this point, the camera tracks with her as she rushes alongside the house, her face fraught with anxiety (fig. 16). Finally, the image begins to dissolve into the next shot (fig. 17). Throughout the sequence thus far, Hitchcock's camera has clung to Charlie like glue, ensuring that we identify with her. Keeping Charlie in the center of the frame as much as possible, it will continue to do so as the sequence proceeds inexorably to its innocence-shattering conclusion.

Fig. 14: Charlie rushes down the stairs.

Fig. 15: Leaving the stairs, she turns sharply toward screen left.

Fig. 16: The camera tracks with her as she hurries alongside the house.

Fig. 17: The shot ends with a dissolve.

I should insert a quick word here about staircases, which often play important parts in Hitchcock films. The exterior stairway seen in this last shot will later be weaponized by Charles when he sabotages one of its steps in his first attempt to kill his niece. (She survives the fall by grabbing the bannister.)[5] Here, those stairs are a connector between the private world of the Newton house, where Charles hides his secrets, and the world outside, where Charlie goes in search of answers. Within a few minutes, she will encounter another set of steps, those leading into the library, which she ascends to finally solve the mystery (see fig. 32 below).

Now, back to that dissolve: It expresses an ellipsis, during which the setting has shifted to downtown Santa Rosa and several minutes have elapsed.[6] The dramatic music, however, has continued unabated; in fact, the score becomes even more frenzied as loud piano notes join the mix of string and wind instruments. We now see Charlie striding straight toward the camera (fig. 18). She's crossing a street as quickly as her high heels will take her, and as soon as she mounts the curb onto the sidewalk, the camera reverse-tracks to keep pace with her. She seems to be hurtling directly at us, almost like a force of nature.

Fig. 18: As the setting shifts to downtown, Charlie continues her journey. 

The reverse-tracking shot continues for a few seconds. Then Hitchcock cuts to a 45-degree angle on Charlie, with the camera moving on a parallel track beside her. Facing screen right, she sweeps past the other pedestrians on the sidewalk (fig. 19).[7] Among them we glimpse a soldier in uniform, out with his girlfriend, one of the film's rare indicators that its story takes place during wartime. Most of the other Santa Rosa citizens are older people, with both the men and women in hats and suits. Virtually no one else on the street is unaccompanied, certainly none of the women. This points to Charlie's isolation in the midst of the crowd, as well as to to her single-mindedness and the degree of worry she feels. Unable to contain her hunger for answers—after all, she could have waited until the next day to visit the library—she's driven to venture out by herself despite the lateness of the hour.

Fig. 19: A new angle of Charlie on the sidewalk, rushing past the other pedestrians. Note the soldier in uniform.

When she reaches a busy intersection where the traffic cop we saw earlier is on duty, she squeezes past the others and barely avoids serious injury. In two quick shots—the first a fairly wide one, the second a closer angle in which the policeman is visible—we see Charlie fend off an oncoming car, which brakes quickly, its tires screeching (figs. 20 and 21). Although her hands touch the hood of the vehicle, she manages to spin out of its way and stay on her feet unharmed. In both shots the camera is stationary. The sense of momentum created by Charlie's movement and the previous tracking shots has suddenly been halted by a literal collision, albeit a minor one, and this brings a suspenseful delay in Charlie's race to her destination.

Fig. 20: Charlie's haste to reach the library nearly results in injury.

Fig. 21: Charlie manages to stay on her feet. This second shot reveals the traffic cop.

Cut to a closer view of the traffic cop (fig. 22), who yells, "Get back, get back!" Perhaps to underline this tension-filled pause in the action, the shot prominently features a "STOP" sign to the right of the policeman. In the next shot —which returns us to a wider view—we follow Charlie as she reverses course back to the sidewalk, the camera panning with her (fig. 23). Note the presence of two emblems of institutional authority—the county courthouse and the bank—in the background of these shots. 

Fig. 22: A closer view of the policeman. "Get back!" he yells.

Fig. 23: Charlie returns to the sidewalk.

Now comes the sequence's closest shot yet, though it still falls within the medium-two-shot range (fig. 24). As a woman, slightly out of focus at screen right, regards her with some surprise and disapproval, Charlie casts her own worried gaze slightly upward at something offscreen. The next shot reveals what she's looking at: the clocktower atop the bank (fig. 25). The time is 8:56, just four minutes before the library closes. This is not a true point-of-view shot; given where Charlie is standing, it would appear much farther away if it were approximating her actual physical perspective. Nevertheless, time looms so large in Charlie's mind at this point that the angle expresses her psychological perspective. (Of course, there's also a practical reason for the camera-to-subject distance: it allows us to read the time clearly.) The next shot (fig. 26) returns us to the angle we saw in fig. 24. Charlie turns her gaze inward, looking at nothing in particular but clearly anxious about the precious seconds that are slipping away.

Fig. 24: Charlie gazes anxiously upward. 

Fig. 25: The library's closing time approaches.

Fig. 26: Charlie's inward distress

A closeup of the policeman blowing his whistle comes next (fig. 27); he motions the pedestrians to proceed. This fairly tight one-shot, positioned from a slightly low angle with the background out of focus, emphasizes the cop's authority. It is, in fact, closer than any of the shots we've seen of Charlie, who's been shown in wide shot more often than from any other distance since the sequence began. As a rule, Hitchcock tends to be judicious in his use of closeups, saving them for the most important moments. Yet, even from a distance, we have no trouble understanding what Charlie is thinking and feeling: her swift, determined movements, the quick glimpses of her face in three-quarter views (as in figs. 24 and 26), and Tiomkin's dramatic score all convey the turbulence of her emotions.

Fig. 27: The cop blows his whistle.

Beginning with a wide view (the same angle as in fig. 23), the next shot shows Charlie and the others stepping off the curb and walking through the intersection, with Charlie taking longer strides than anyone else (fig. 28). The camera pans with the pedestrians and dollies in as they approach the policeman. He seizes Charlie by the arm when she passes, and the panning movement stops as they are reframed in two-shot (fig. 29). "Just a moment, Charlie. What do you think I'm out here for?" he demands. She meekly apologizes: "I'm sorry, Mr. Norton." A busy man, he sends her on her way, and she exits the frame at screen right. Formally, the staging of this encounter recalls the one with Ann: it all plays out in a single shot, starting with a wide view and then recomposing it more tightly by means of a dolly.

Fig. 28: Proceeding across the street.

Fig. 29: The camera dollies in as Norton pulls Charlie aside for a reprimand.

This delay at the intersection marks Point C in Charlie's little journey. As before with Ann, she is reprimanded: silently by the anonymous woman standing next to her at the curb and verbally by Mr. Norton the traffic cop. Disruptive force that he is, Charles and his possible criminality have so upset his niece that her actions cause disruptions of their own—disruptions that occur, significantly, in the middle of Santa Rosa's Courthouse Square, its institutional core. (Disruptive figures and disruptive actions in Hitchcock films are often contrasted with symbols of order: think, for example, of the climactic scenes in Saboteur, staged at the top of the Stature of Liberty, and North by Northwest, staged on the face of Mount Rushmore.)

It's significant that Charlie and the policeman know each other's names because, as Negra observes, their familiarity underscores "how embedded Charlie is in her community."[8] One easily infers that this community sees her as a model teenager, a "nice girl," someone who's not expected to break society's rules. When she does break them, it attracts special notice and rebukes of the "you-ought-to-know-better" sort. In such subtle ways, Hitchcock dramatizes the ripples of chaos that have Charles Oakley at their center.

Even within the town's institutional core, Hitchcock provides a strong reminder of Charlie's familial connections. The bank, after all, is where Charlie's father works, and its signage, notably the word "BANK" in all caps, appears in four separate shots (see figs. 22, 25, 27, and 29). This particular institution is not just a symbol of finance and the larger capitalist system but also the source of the Newton family's income and, by extension, the stability that Charles threatens. Would Joe keep his job there if it turned out his brother-in-law was a criminal?

In the wide shot that comes next, we finally see the library (fig. 30). Entering the corner of the frame at screen left, Charlie (once more a tiny, vulnerable figure) cuts across another intersection, this time diagonally, dodging cars as she goes. In ignoring the crosswalks in her haste to beat the clock, Charlie again "breaks the rules" and risks her own safety.

Fig. 30: The library at last.

The lights are still on in the ivy-clad building. (The library would not appear out of place on a traditional college campus; its "look" befits its status as the town's public repository of knowledge.) Charlie breaks into a run as she approaches the far curb, and Hitchcock cuts to a new angle (another wide shot) as she races along the sidewalk toward the library entrance, the camera panning with her (fig. 31). We see her scurry up the steps (fig. 32); then there's a cut to medium shot as she reaches the doors, only to find them locked (fig. 33). She exits the frame screen left, entering the next shot, a wide view of the library windows, at screen right. With a distant clock chiming the hour—presumably it's the one atop the bank—Charlie momentarily freezes on the sidewalk as the lights in the library go out (fig. 34). Desperate but undeterred, she hurries back out of frame, moving left to right toward the offscreen library steps. The next shot returns us to the entrance, where Charlie enters the frame screen right to rap frantically on the glass (fig. 35).

Fig. 31: Racing toward the entrance . . .

Fig. 32: . . . and up the steps.

Fig. 33: The doors are locked.

Fig. 34: The lights go out.

Fig. 35: Back at the entrance, Charlie raps on the glass.

Charlie's rapping attracts more silent rebukes. Hitchcock cuts to a reverse-angle view of the sidewalk, seen from a perspective atop the library steps. Several passersby look up, startled by the noise Charlie is making (fig. 36). We can read their thoughts: What in the world is that young woman up to? This isn't a POV shot since we didn't see Charlie turn around in the previous shot—her back remained to the camera—but it would be had she done so. She's too preoccupied with her mission, however, to notice the effects of her actions on those nearby.

Fig. 36: Charlie's rapping attracts notice.

In any event, Charlie achieves her goal. In a return to the view of her at the entrance, we see a light come on inside, and Mrs. Corcoran (Eily Malyon), the librarian, approaches the door (fig. 37). Charlie pleads to be let in; Mrs. Corcoran, clearly annoyed, says something we can't hear. Cut to a tight two-shot on the other side of the glass; the panic on Charlie's face is palpable (fig. 38). With a stern expression, Mrs. Corcoran points to the library hours printed on the glass.

Fig. 37: Mrs. Corcoran comes to the door.

Fig. 38: Charlie's panic and Mrs. Corcoran's annoyance.

This is Point D in Charlie's journey, another momentary delay. Fortunately for Charlie, Mrs. Corcoran relents and reaches for the door handle. In an on-axis cut to a wider two-shot, the librarian opens the door and lets Charlie in (fig. 39).

Fig. 39: Charlie enters the library.

The following dialogue ensues:

CHARLIE (with relief): Oh, thank you.

MRS. CORCORAN (firmly): Really, Charlie, you know as well as I do, the library closes at nine. If I make one exception, I'll have to make a thousand.

CHARLIE: I'm sorry, Mrs. Corcoran, but there's something in the paper I've just got to see.

MRS. CORCORAN: I'm surprised at you, Charlie. No consideration.

CHARLIE (meekly): Oh, I'll only be a minute. 

MRS. CORCORAN: You've had all day, Charlie, to come here. (She and Charlie begin to walk toward screen right, the camera panning with them.) I don't know why you want to rush in here tonight like a madwoman. I'll give you just three minutes. (She holds up three fingers.)

Again, as with the policeman, we see how "embedded" Charlie is within Santa Rosa: she's as well known to Mrs. Corcoran as she is to the traffic cop. And the librarian delivers the sternest of all the reprimands she's received in this sequence—it's an outright lecture, in fact. Still, probably because of Charlie's overall "nice girl" reputation, Mrs. Corcoran yields to her request to see the paper—within a time limit, of course. 

Without a cut, Mrs. Corcoran disappears into the darkness of a corridor, while the camera pans with Charlie as she hurries toward the newspaper reading room (fig. 40). 

Fig. 40: Charlie moves through the library.

When she reaches the newspaper rack, the lights come on (fig. 41). (In this moment, as in the early portion of the sequence, light is associated with knowledge and darkness with secrets and ignorance.) Not finding what she wants, she turns to some shelves where the papers are arranged in stacks. As the camera pivots with her every move, she takes one of the papers (fig. 42), places it on a table, and sits down, her back to us (fig. 43).[9]

Fig. 41: The lights come on as Charlie reaches the newspaper rack.

Fig. 42: The right paper is found.

Fig. 43: Sitting down, Charlie begins to search for the article.

Take note that there hasn't been a cut since Charlie entered the library (see fig. 39); the shot lasts forty seconds, equally divided between stasis (the dialogue with Mrs. Corcoran) and movement (Charlie's rush into the reading room). At last we've reached Point E, where Charlie will learn the truth. And to stress the importance of the moment, once Charlie seats herself Hitchcock cuts to a tight closeup of her: first we see the back of her head and then her profile as she leafs through the pages. This is the tightest facial shot in the entire sequence. Anxiously Charlie says to herself: "Can't be anything really awful. I'll prove to him that it isn't. Page three." On that page, an item catches her eye (fig. 44).

Fig. 44: A page-three article grabs Charlie's attention.

Tiomkin's score plays a critical role here. It has been a constant presence from the beginning of the sequence, at its loudest and most frenetic whenever Charlie is in motion. So as not to compete with the dialogue, it quiets down whenever she interacts with someone else—Ann, Mr. Norton, Mrs. Corcoran—but never stops altogether. The literary scholar and musicologist Jack Sullivan, in his fascinating book on Hitchcock's use of music, writes of Tiomkin's "Russian intensity" and describes the score in this particular sequence as a "musical tour de force." And, as he points out, when Charlie's eyes finally land on the right article, "the moment, registered by a sudden silence, could not be more tense." That silence lasts for barely a second. Then, the music "gasps [with] a shocking dissonance that rips through the silence, ending Charlie's consonant life."[10]

That "gasp" is a blare of horns, which accompanies a sudden cut to the all-caps, sans-serif headline that has caught Charlie's attention: "WHERE IS THE MERRY WIDOW MURDERER?" (fig. 45). A subhead elaborates: "Nation-wide Search Underway for Strangler of Three Rich Women." A dark, heavy version of "The Merry Widow Waltz" begins as the camera scrolls down the column, which details the "coast-to-coast search for the killer" (fig. 46). As the scrolling continues—an approximation of Charlie's POV—we learn that two men are being sought by detectives, "one of whom they are certain is the actual killer." The pounding piano returns, along with some heavy percussion, as the camera reaches the final paragraphs of the article, which say that the victims were all wealthy widows (hence the nickname given the killer) and that the latest of them was "Mrs. Bruce Matthewson, the former musical comedy star, known to audiences at the beginning of this century as 'the beautiful Thelma Schenley' " (fig. 47). At forty-five seconds, it's the second-longest shot in the sequence (the scene in Ann's bedroom being the longest). The slowness of the scroll-down allows the audience to take in the shocking details and process them, just as Charlie is doing.

Fig. 45: The shocking headline that arrests Charlie's attention.

Fig. 46: More details, as the camera scrolls down.

Fig. 47: The latest victim identified.

The music pauses as the shot ends, but then begins to swell again, quietly at first and then more forcefully —but not too forcefully—over the next three shots, each of them quite brief. We return to the closeup of Charlie in profile (fig. 48).[11] Having finished the article, she lowers her head slightly, her eyes fixing on something else offscreen. The next shot, a closeup of her hands, reveals what she's looking at: the emerald ring that Charles had given her on his first evening in Santa Rosa (fig. 49). She loosens it from her finger. Cut to an extreme closeup of the ring pressed between her fingertips. As she rotates it, its inscription becomes visible: "T.S. from B.M." (fig. 50). Just as Charlie must be doing, we connect the initials to the names in the newspaper: T.S. = Thelma Schenley; B.M. = Bruce Matthewson. Recall Charlie's words from earlier: "Someone else was probably happy with this ring." And that someone, she realizes with what we can only imagine to be absolute horror, died at the hands of her beloved uncle.

The newspaper with its incriminating article and the emerald ring with its incriminating inscription are excellent examples of what Andrew Sarris meant when he wrote of Hitchcock's use of "objects as visual correlatives." He argued: "Hitchcock's objects are never mere props of a basically theatrical mise-en-scène, but rather the very substance of his cinema. These objects embody the feelings and fears of characters as object and character interact with each other in dramas within dramas."[12] As I've mentioned, the ring and the newspaper both figured strongly in scenes leading up to this sequence, and it is here at last that Hitchcock brilliantly unites these two pieces of the puzzle that is Charles Oakley. 

Fig. 48: Having read the article, Charlie lowers her head toward something else offscreen.

\

Fig. 49: It's the emerald ring, which she removes.

Fig. 50: The incriminating inscription.

All the excitement and tension that has been building over the last several minutes—generated by a carefully orchestrated pattern of movement and delay—is released with the twenty-five-second shot that ends the sequence. The camera is positioned behind Charlie's right shoulder at a slightly elevated angle, the newspaper still spread out before her (fig. 51). Clasping the ring in her right hand, she slowly rises from the chair. As she does so, the camera cranes upward and away from her (fig. 52). Utterly devastated, Charlie walks slowly toward screen left, her back to us, her right arm dragging listlessly across the top of a chair as she moves away from the table, away from the lighted reading room and into the darkened area beyond. (The darkness now suggests the despair that's overcome her.) The camera ascends ever higher, and with its ascension, Charlie seems to shrink, her innocence and naïveté crushed beneath the weight of her knowledge (fig. 53). Finally, as "The Merry Widow Waltz" returns to the soundtrack, the swirling dancers from the credits reappear—superimposed over Charlie's lonely departure from the library (fig. 54).[13]

Fig. 51: Charlie folds the ring into her right hand.

Fig. 52: She arises from the table as the camera cranes away from her.

Fig. 53: Utter devastation. 

Fig. 54: The waltzers return. 

Though this last shot is relatively simple in execution, I rank it among the most memorable in Hitchcock's oeuvre. There have been myriad camera movements up to this point in the sequence, but they've been almost entirely motivated movements—that is, they follow Charlie's actions within the frame. Even those forceful tracking shots near the beginning of the sequence (see figs. 16–19) fall within this category. The only unmotivated camera movements prior to this last one are the dolly-ins that occur when Charlie is interacting with Ann and the policeman (see figs. 10 and 29). But in these cases, the movements are barely perceptible in that they simply reframe the actors more tightly: we're so focused on the characters and what's being said that we easily overlook what the camera is doing. It's in this final crane shot that we most feel Hitchcock's—and his camera's—presence.[14] The director is inviting us to contemplate Charlie and her dilemma—to take the God's-eye view, as it were—and consider where she might go from here. It also encapsulates her own thoughts and emotions, and in this regard, Rothman's summation is apt:

The framing that isolates [Charlie's] human figure, looking down on it (but not condemning her, not scorning her) is expressive of her situation. She feels small because she knows she is trapped in a struggle against a monstrous adversary. But she also feels small because she knows she has a large responsibility. The knowledge she possesses gives her a terrifying power over Charles. The framing expresses both her real vulnerability and her recognition of her stature as a moral agent, an adult.[15]

In a similar vein, Negra writes: 

Charlie's acquisition of knowledge re-configures her relationship to it. Once she leaves the library where she verifies her uncle's criminal status, we understand that she will never walk through Santa Rosa the same way again.[16] 

* * *

The sequence is the turning point in Shadow of a Doubt: from now on it will be "The Battle of the Two Charlies." In making the transition, Hitchcock maintains the superimposition of the swirling waltzers when the next shot begins. As the dancing couples fade away, we see Charles with his back to us—just as Charlie's was—reading the morning newspaper while strolling on the lawn outside the Newton house (fig. 55). He's looking for another article about the "Merry Widow" murderer, which to his relief he doesn't find—not knowing, of course, that his niece is now on to him.

Fig. 55: The waltzers dissolve into a shot of Charles searching the latest newspaper.

It's not long before he comes to that realization, however. Charlie spends the day in bed and doesn't show up again until dinnertime hours later. "She doesn't look quite herself," says Emma. With the family gathering at the table, Joe passes the evening paper over to Charles, remarking, "Nothing special in it." Naturally, Charles immediately begins scanning the headlines, finally putting the paper aside after agreeing that it indeed contains "nothing special." It's at this point that Charlie enters the room to serve dinner and begins dropping hints about her newfound knowledge. She says that while sleeping she had "perfect nightmares—about you, Uncle Charlie," casting him a knowing look and saying she felt "terribly happy" when, in her dream, she saw him leaving on a train as if he were "running away from something." The kicker comes a moment later: "You can throw the paper away. Dad's read it and you've read it, and we don't need to play any games with it tonight." (With these comments, the newspaper's importance as "a visual correlative" is exhausted. There's still the emerald ring, however, and it will feature strongly in two scenes to come.)

Charlie, in deep despair just hours before, has begun to regain her confidence—enough so that she's not afraid to let Charles know that she's unmasked him. But she's not completely there, not just yet. When, some moments later, Charles delivers what is perhaps the movie's most famous speech—a misogynist denouncement of wealthy widows as "useless women . . . drinking the money, eating the money . . . smelling of money"—Charlie cries out, "But they're alive! They're human beings!" Charles scoffs: "Are they, Charlie? Are they human, or are they fat, wheezing animals? Hmm?"[17]

Compounding Charlie's distress is a visit from Herb (who "always comes when we're eating," whispers Emma). Taking a seat near the dinner table, he tells Joe about his latest idea for a murder, a scheme that Joe counters with one of his own. Their back-and-forth is more than Charlie can stand, now that she knows a real murderer has invaded her home. "Oh, what's the matter with you two?" she exclaims, jumping up from her chair. "Do you always have to talk about killing people?" To everyone's dismay, she rushes out of the house, and Charles goes after her.

One thing I haven't mentioned explicitly up to now is something that virtually all commentators on Shadow of a Doubt bring up: what Thomas Leitch calls its "doubling of villain and victim."[18] Hitchcock indicates the peculiar bond between uncle and niece from the very beginning when he introduces them in similar ways (each lying on a bed fully clothed) and when he suggests, through Charlie, their "telepathic" connection. "We're like twins," Charlie says early on, with Charles repeating the line late in the film. To underscore the theme, doublings of all sorts occur throughout: two pairs of detectives, two younger Newton children, two "Merry Widow" suspects, two crime-story fans, and so on. The scene that follows Charlie's anguished departure from the Newton home is another doubling, deliberately echoing the sequence I analyzed in detail above. For that reason, it merits a closer—if less detailed—look.

A dissolve takes us back to downtown Santa Rosa at night. To the dramatic strains of Tiomkin's score, the tracking camera follows behind Charles as he pursues Charlie down the busy sidewalk (fig. 56). (Recall how the camera reverse-tracked in the earlier sequence as Charlie moved toward it.) In the far distance, Norton the traffic cop is on duty. He blows his whistle for the pedestrians to proceed, and as Charlie rushes past him in the next shot, he grabs her again—not because she's disobeying his signal this time but because she's moving too fast. The delay allows Charles to catch up with her (fig. 57). "Is this gentleman the uncle I've heard so much about, Charlie?" Norton asks. After Charlie introduces them, the policeman quips, "You better keep your eye on your niece, Mr. Oakley. I'll have to give her a ticket for speeding one of these nights—city ordinance about running along these sidewalks." With a sarcasm that's lost on Norton but not on Charlie, Charles takes her by the arm and says, "Hear that, Charlie? Don't want to break the law."

Fig. 56: With Charles right behind her, Charlie approaches the street corner where Norton is on duty.

Fig. 57: An introduction at the intersection.

What comes next is like a dark parody of Charlie's entry into the library the night before (as if that scene weren't dark enough). Against her protests—"I've never been in a place like this"—Charles drags her into a bar called the " 'Til Two." Its name, a reference to its closing time, yet again evokes the doubles motif, while the image of a clock on its door recalls the clocktower atop the bank. And inside the bar, which bustles with uniformed soldiers and their dates, is still another of Charlie's acquaintances, a weary waitress named Louise Finch (Janet Shaw). "I was in Charlie's class at school," she tells Charles in an affectless voice. To Charlie she says, "I sure was surprised to see you come in. I never thought I'd see you here." Though not phrased as a reprimand, Louise's remarks are one more commentary on Charlie's reputation and the confusion that results when she doesn't appear to behave in ways expected of her.

The emerald ring resurfaces as a significant object in this scene. As Charles uses his charm to try to find out how much Charlie knows, she takes it from her pocket and places it on the table between them. Returning with their order—a ginger ale for Charlie, a double brandy for Charles—Louise notices it, recognizes its value, and comments with unknowing irony, "Ain't it beautiful? I'd just die for a ring like that. Yes sir, for a ring like that, I'd just about die" (fig. 58). Little does Louise know the extent to which an actual death—a violent death—is associated with that ring.

Fig. 58: Louise notices the ring.

If the scene in the library reading room gave Charlie, via the newspaper article, one lesson about a specific evil in the world, here she gets another from the very source of that evil. When his charm offensive fails to reassure her, Charles tries a different, more hostile tactic: mocking her lost innocence and expressing his nihilistic worldview. "You think you're the clever little girl who knows something," he says. "There's so much you don't know. . . . 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? Use your wits, Charlie. Learn something!" Charlie leaves the ring on the table for Charles to pocket and exits the bar as severely distraught as she was when she rushed out of the house not long before. This time the rebuke/lecture she has received is not about the need to obey society's rules but about the unimportance of breaking them. Caught in the middle, she'll have to find her own way to escape her dilemma and protect her family—even if that means withholding evidence and, thus, not strictly following the law.

And what we'll witness, as the film enters its final half hour, is a new, stronger determination in Charlie's actions and attitude. Call it self-empowerment. Speaking with Detective Saunders the next day, Charlie agrees to persuade her uncle to leave town within two hours and to inform him and Graham about "when he leaves and how he leaves"—although she doesn't tell him how much she knows about Charles's guilt. A fateful twist scotches those plans, however: news arrives that the other suspect has been killed in a freak accident while fleeing the police. Thinking the case is closed, Graham stops at the Newton home to say goodbye to Charlie and profess his love for her. They promise to stay in touch. Meanwhile, Charles appears ready to remain in Santa Rosa, but he fears his niece will betray him, prompting his attempt to murder her by sabotaging one of the exterior steps. They confront each other that evening after Charlie inspects the step to confirm his nefarious handiwork. He insists that he isn't leaving and that no one will believe her if she tries to expose him: "A waltz runs through your head. You don't like the initials on a ring and you connect it all up with a newspaper clipping. You haven't even got the ring." But Charlie refuses to be intimidated. With chilling resolve, she tells her uncle, "Go away, or I'll kill you myself. See? That's the way I feel about you."

The second murder attempt comes in the next scene. The family is about to depart for a meeting of Emma's club, where Charles is to give a speech. With everyone else gathering inside, Charles starts the car in the garage and takes the key. A few moments later, Charlie, sent out to fetch the car, finds the garage filled with deadly fumes; Charles surreptitiously closes the door behind her and jams it shut. She's saved when Herb, passing nearby, alerts the family to noises coming from the garage. After replacing the car key and turning off the ignition, Charles feigns concern as he leans over Charlie, who's been placed on the ground outside the garage. "Go away," she whispers icily. "Go away."

Staying behind while everyone else departs for the speech, Charlie tries to reach Graham by phone but can't locate him (see note 3 below). Forced to take on her uncle by herself, she begins searching through his things for the incriminating emerald ring. (Here we have another doubling: Charlie's going through drawers to find the ring recalls her earlier rifling in the wastebasket for that crucial newspaper item [see fig. 7].) Soon, Charles, the Newtons, and various friends of the family return from the meeting and gather in the living room below for a post-speech reception. Seeing Charlie descend the stairs, Charles lifts a glass to her only to notice something. The camera dollies in for a closeup of her hand on the bannister; she's wearing the ring, signaling that she's regained possession of the damning evidence and that she won't yield to him any further (fig. 59). Unsettled by her bold act of defiance, Charles announces his plan to leave Santa Rosa the next day but promises to return. Emma is heartbroken, and Charlie—though she appears to have succeeded in expelling her uncle, at least for the time being—can't help but feel intense sadness and empathy for her poor, deluded mother.

Fig. 59: The camera dollies in on the emerald ring.

At the station the next day, Charlie joins Ann and Roger for a quick tour of the train before it departs. When Charles boards, he deliberately detains Charlie after the children have disembarked. As the train starts up, he pushes her into an area at one end of the car, restrains her, and throws open the door. "I've got to do this, Charlie," he says, "so long as you know what you do about me." In the ensuing struggle, Charlie manages to gain the upper hand. Then, one little shove and . . . Charles tumbles from the speeding train directly into the path of another (fig. 60). Though she acts in self-defense, Charlie has made good on her promise to kill her uncle. Her loss of innocence is complete.

Fig. 60: The death of Charles Oakley.

The "Merry Widow Waltz" returns to the soundtrack, and the image of dancing couples is superimposed for one last time (fig. 61). A dissolve brings a high-angle shot of a funeral cortege (fig. 62). Having made a sizable donation to the local hospital, Charles gets a grand sendoff from the citizens of Santa Rosa. The whole town seems to have turned out for the procession. 

Fig. 61: One last glimpse of the waltzing couples.

Fig. 62: A town pays its respects.

A brief fade-out/fade-in takes us to the exterior of the church where the funeral is in progress. Significantly, Charlie isn't inside listening to the eulogy. (How did she explain that to her mother?) She's standing just outside with Graham, to whom she's finally told the whole truth (fig. 63). "I did know more," she says. "I couldn't tell you." Graham nods sympathetically. "I know," he answers, offering a personal, if not legal, pardon. In the background, we hear the minister's words, extolling Charles's kindness, bravery, and generosity. Charlie's own remarks, recalling some of what Charles told her inside the 'Til Two bar, paint a different picture: "He thought the world was a horrible place. . . . He said that people like us had no idea what the world was really like." Graham attempts to console her: "Well, it's not quite as bad as that, but sometimes it needs a lot of watching. It seems to go crazy now and then—like your uncle Charlie."[19] The minister's voice again becomes audible as he places Charles in a select company: "The beauty of their souls, the sweetness of their characters, live on with us forever." On this note of pronounced irony, the film ends.

Fig. 63: Graham and Charlie stand outside the church at the funeral.

Does Charlie take any solace from Graham's reassurances? The movie doesn't say: she appears quite miserable when we last see her. Do she and Graham have a future together? Again, we don't know for sure: Charlie gave him no definite answer when he, in effect, proposed to her in an earlier scene, and there's no indication that she's given him one in the interim. What is clear is that the little journey she took after their first evening together—that suspense-filled trek from the upstairs hallway of her home to the reading room of the library—led her to profoundly painful knowledge that has altered her forever.

Notes

[1] Diane Negra, Shadow of a Doubt (Liverpool, UK: Auteur Publications–Liverpool University Press, 2021), 25. Negra's monograph is the most extensive treatment of Shadow now available, although she concerns herself more with its "ideological richness" than with its "meticulous craft." Still, her analysis is quite wide-ranging and provocative, covering such topics as the film's kinship with film noir, its status as a family romance and the Freudian implications of that, its treatment (and sly critiques) of middle-class norms and institutions in 1940s America, its place within gendered wartime culture, its ironic irresolution at the end, and its afterlife in popular culture.
[2] William Rothman, Hitchcock—The Murderous Gaze (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 209. Shadow of a Doubt is one of five films—The Lodger, Murder!, The 39 Steps, and Psycho are the others—that Rothman subjects to close readings. Unlike Negra, he gives more weight to the movie's formal qualities, often engaging in shot-by-shot analysis as I'm doing here. Oddly, however, this sequence is one that he passes over rather quickly, paying the most attention to this opening shot and to the one that closes the sequence. He deals only summarily with the middle section, describing it as "a brief suspense sequence," in which "Charlie rushes through town to try to get to the library before it closes at 9:00." Ibid.

[3] To Thomas M. Leitch, Shadow of a Doubt is of a piece with several other films Hitchcock made during the 1940s—notably, Rebecca, Suspicion, and Notorious—in which a female protagonist finds herself imprisoned within her own home. Leitch points out a striking shot that occurs late in the film when Charlie is desperately trying to phone Graham, who's left town in the mistaken belief that the case has been solved: "She is shown through a bannister as if through bars" (below). In the sequence I'm analyzing here, the visual prominence Hitchcock gives to the balustrades is in part preparation for the later shot. Leitch also observes that Hitchcock makes "uncharacteristic use of deep focus throughout the film, whose visuals seem strongly influenced by those of William Wyler's The Little Foxes." (This can be seen in virtually all the shots I've depicted thus far; see esp. figs. 4, 5, and 8.) Leitch, Find the Director and Other Hitchcock Games (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991), 124.

Charlie "behind bars" while trying to reach Graham by phone.

[4] Negra points out links between Charlie and the "girl detective" figures like Nancy Drew that had become staples of American popular culture by the time of the film's release: "Charlie's flashes of intuition and her ability to deduce that her uncle's clumsy attempt to conceal the newspaper story about the Merry Widow murderer suggests an important secret are among the film's signs that her character operates within this tradition." Negra, Shadow of a Doubt, 71.
[5] This is the film's first full view of the backstairs. However, Hitchcock called attention to them earlier while introducing us to the Newton family. "Those back stairs are steep," says Emma, in her first line of dialogue, having just climbed them offscreen. We also get a hint of them a little later when we see Charles, through the back window, ascending them to the top landing in an angle identical to the one in fig. 13. The interior stairs, on the other hand, are featured in several shots throughout the early part of the film.
[6] Most often in classic Hollywood filmmaking, a dissolve is used to begin an entirely new dramatic situation, but here it's used to indicate a brief lapse of time and change of place in the single journey that Charlie is taking. When she left Ann's room, she was proceeding to Point C; this latest movement is a continuation of that.
[7] A note here on standard filmmaking practice: Prior to the dissolve, we saw Charlie facing screen left as she departed the house and set out for the library (see figs. 15 and 16). The change in screen direction we see here, with Charlie facing screen right, might be puzzling if Hitchcock had gone directly from the earlier shot to this one. The dissolve to the straight-on view of Charlie (figs. 17 and 18), in addition to its dramatic effect, allowed the director to subsequently cut to this shot without confusing the audience. As one filmmaking handbook advises: "When it is desired to change the screen direction of an event that already has been firmly established as going in a particular direction, it is imperative to shoot a transitional or neutral direction shot." The straight-on shot (as well as the dissolve that leads into it) serves that transitional purpose. Kirk Smallman, Creative Film-Making (1969; reprint, New York: Bantam Books, 1972), 92.
[8] Negra, Shadow of a Doubt, 12.
[9] Sharp-eyed viewers will notice a couple of more references to the war here. The newspaper Charlie takes from the rack has a banner headline in which Japanese prime minister Tojo's name appears prominently; on the wall behind her, a poster advertises war bonds. Earlier we saw a similar poster in Joe's bank; and later in the film, when Charles takes Charlie into a local bar, we notice that many of the patrons are soldiers in uniform.
[10] Jack Sullivan, Hitchcock's Music (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 91, 93.
[11] Inserting the newspaper article between closeups of Teresa Wright's face illustrates something Hitchcock took from early Russian filmmakers like Kuleshov and Pudovkin. The visible emotion Ms. Wright exhibits is minimal, imparted mainly by slight movements of her eyes and mouth. It is through the juxtaposition of these shots with the shocking content of the article that we fully intuit her emotions. (Hitchcock did something similar with the clock-watching moment earlier [see figs. 24–26] and would carry the technique to its fullest realization in Rear Window.) The visible emotion is further minimized by the angle Hitchcock chose: he shot the actress in profile, not the optimum angle for observing her face. But it does highlight the graceful curves of Ms. Wright's features, which make for a striking graphic contrast with the starkness of the newspaper headline and the column of type below it. 
[12] Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929–1968 (1968; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1996), 59.
[13] Earlier, in a parenthetical aside, I wondered whether the previous superimposition of the dancing couples, accompanied by Lehár's waltz, might be an image from Charles's head that had "jumped" into Charlie's. Its reappearance here may represent something in Charlie's mind, or it may be a purely expressionistic flourish on Hitchcock's part, unconnected to anything the character might be thinking, which might also be the case in that earlier instance, as well as in one that shows up near the end of the film. This is something about which viewers can only speculate. Whatever the favored "explanation," I would argue that Hitchcock's artistic purpose at this particular moment is to put a bow on the package that came together when Charlie—and we—linked the newspaper article to the ring inscription.  
[14] The director Paul Schrader's remarks on this topic are useful: "There are two types of camera movement: motivated and unmotivated. Motivated camera movements are direct responses to the action on screen: you move, I follow you. A character walks across the room and the camera tilts, pans, or physically moves by hand or on tracks. Unmotivated camera moves are used for emphasis of one kind or another, be it emotional or supernatural, by the storyteller. You stand still, I approach—that’s unmotivated." Schrader further distinguishes between "logical" and "illogical" unmotivated movements. With the former, he says, "A character is doing something—brandishing a small object, making a gesture, displaying a look of heightened emotion—and it’s important that we see it, so the camera moves in to get a closer look. The camera is doing what the viewer wants or needs it to do." The dolly-in shots Hitchcock uses in this sequence fall into this category. An "illogical" movement, on the other hand, "occurs when the storyteller imposes himself on the story, when the camera calls attention to itself." The ascending crane shot that ends the sequence is a good example of this. Schrader, "Game Changers: Camera Movement," Film Comment, March–April 2015, 57.
[15] Rothman, Hitchcock—The Murderous Gaze, 210–11.
[16] Negra, Shadow of a Doubt, 93.
[17] For a detailed formal analysis of this scene, see David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, and Jeff Smith, Film Art: An Introduction, 12th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2020), 311–13.
[18] Thomas Leitch, The Encyclopedia of Alfred Hitchcock (New York: Checkmark Books–Facts on File, 2002), 301.
[19] Audiences in 1943 likely took these words as a comment on the war. They may well have responded similarly when Charles described the world as "a hell," given what was happening in Europe, northern Africa, and the Asia-Pacific theater.