Hitchcock and the Small Town: Shadow of a Doubt - Santa Rosa, California 1943
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 23. 02. 2021
- 1940s Santa Rosa California is on display in Alfred Hitchcock's classic movie thriller "Shadow Of A Doubt" (1943). Starring Joseph Cotton and Theresa Wright, the film explores what happens when darkness invades an Every Town, USA. This is Hitchcock's Santa Rosa Movie.
Santa Rosa served as the perfect setting because it exuded small town charm. Since many of the locations filmed for the movie were demolished in the early to mid-1960s, what Alfred Hitchcock captured on film really was a moment in time for Santa Rosa and part of the evolution of a city.
Alfred Hitchcock would revisit central California for other films like The Birds, Vertigo and Marnie. But Shadow of A Doubt marked the first time he saw the potential of the location as a perfect setting for some dark and twisted stories.
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If you're interested in the films and books mentioned in this video I've listed where you can find them in the links below.
If you buy something through my links I may get a small share of the sale. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) DVD: amzn.to/3rAhnuX
4K/UHD: amzn.to/380Zwq2
Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco (Paperback): amzn.to/3EtPdHq
Alfred Hitchcock: The Complete Films (Hardcover): amzn.to/3877wGg
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"Shadow of a Doubt" is a great trip through the history of Santa Rosa, California since many of the locations featured in this film were later demolished in the 1960s.
Teresa Wright absolutely owns this movie, and she is heartachingly-lovely in it. It says a lot about Hollywood that she and JOseph Cotten played a husband and wife nine years later in THE STEEL TRAP.
@@denroy3 She is the heart and soul of the movie, the force for good fighting alone against a very great evil. I think that's what the original poster meant, and I agree with them. I love Joseph Cotton and he was also great, but you are rooting for Theresa Wright's character every step of the way.
LOVE this Hitchcock movie. It truly is his first American film. Smalltown USA. Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotton are wonderful. It's an earlier gem of Hitchcock. Thanks for spotlighting it with your spot-on narration of the general plot. More people should know about this film.
Hitchcock had a soft spot for this film, and rightly so. Everyone in it is perfect, down to the child actors. Teresa Wright is her usual magnificent self, and can we say that the great Joseph Cotten nowadays does not get to be remembered in the way he deserves to be. Great actor, a great film presence, he had it all. It will be good to have a video dedicated to him and the great films he was in.
Shadow of a Doubt ranks in my top five favorite Hitchcock films. I first watched it when I took a Hitchcock course in graduate school and it crept into my brain, where it smoldered for years. Not the flashiest or most iconic of Hitchcockâs films, but thereâs something about the story that is deeply unsettling. The perfect-small-town setting is a big part of that. Having grown up in a big city, thereâs a real appeal to the idea of an idyllic little town in which you can walk to the library or to a restaurant and everyone knows you. The danger that creeps into that perfect world is therefore that much worse. This story wouldnât work in the big city because you expect danger to lurk around every corner in the impersonal metropolis. Just a brilliant film - with a fantastic musical score, too.
Joseph Cotten is the most unsung great American actor! Here he plays against type just as successfully as he played the good guy in several of Orson Welles' films and Gaslight, for starters.
Took the words out of my keyboard! đ
Great performance by Teresa Wright, her character projects much of the young woman she portrayed in Best Years of Our Lives.
The script was co-written by Thornton Wilder, the chronicler of small town America. Hitchcock often said it was his favorite of all his movies.
My favorite Hitchcock film as well.
That's interesting - I didn't know that!
SHADOW OF A DOUBT is my second favorite Hitchcock movie.
I'm intrigued. What's your first?
Definitely one of my favorite Hitchcock movies!! The relationship between young Charlie and uncle Charlie was electrifying. Iâm pretty sure the movie Stoker starring Mia Wasikowska was inspired by this one :)
I forgot about Stoker. The uncle's name is that is Charlie too.
Loved your take on "Shadow of a Doubt." When I was still teaching Introduction to Film Study classes, I always worked in a Hitchcock film, so students would get exposed to his great talent. Many had never seen any of his films, of course. Limited by time restraints and by the pool of available Hitchcock films, I often used "Notorious," which has great scenes to analyze in class. But once, I chose "Shadow of a Doubt" because it is one of my personal favorites. The students reacted much more strongly to it than I anticipated, and we had great discussions about acting, writing, directing, and Hitch's use of music. In retrospect, I think it is Teresa Wright's character that drew the students to the film.
Cogent, insightful analysis of this Hitchcock classic. One of his best. The small town setting is practically the lead character of the film. Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotton play their roles perfectly.
Excellent Review! I teach a film study class, where kids write reviews, but watching this gave me the idea of having kids make reviews like this.
Thank you so much for watching! Come back and drop me a line to let me know how the reviews turn out.
One of my favorite movies by Hitchcock! I loved the video! Wish it is longer!
This is a video I want to redo. I made this one when I was a baby youtuber and it could do with a remake.
I've been to Santa Rosa many times, since my parents moved there when they retired and lived there until their deaths (not counting a few final months my mother spent in a facility). I think I had seen this movie before they moved; at the latest, I would have seen it not long after. Every years the Sonoma County Fair, held in Santa Rosa, has an elaborate flower show with the exhibits participating in the show's theme for the year; I still go to see that show every year. One year the theme was movies made in Sonoma County, and naturally there were exhibits dealing with Shadow of a Doubt (and The Birds). They had constructed (I think specially for that year) a little room in the exhibition hall where Shadow of a Doubt was continuously running.
I've just come across this channel recently and I'm hooked! I can't believe it has so few subscribers, the content is outstanding. Keep doing what you're doing â€
Thanks for watching and subscribing! I'm glad you're enjoying the videos.
Thank you. I feel great affaction for this picture, not least because we have a female hero as distinct from the traditional heroine. Hitchcock did the same thing with Ingrid Bergman in Spelllbound a few years later. Hitchcock shot most of the picture on location wheras his usual practice, and major flaw IMO, was to do nearly everything in the studio. I have only just come across your commentaries and I enjoy them very much.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Shadow of a Doubt is one of my favorite Hitchcock films and think that has do with filming on location in Santa Rosa. I love the slice of life we get and the way the town became a character.
Ah, another movie added to the âmust see listâ. Saved a rainy, windy, moonless night.
TY so much for posting.
Many Blessings đđșđž
This is a good one! Joseph Cotton is cooly terrifying. Both he and Teresa Wright are fantastic in it.
Made me want to watch this tonight! Great choice of shots, CC. Another winner right here đâ€đœđŹ
Hey, thanks for checking this one out! Its an oldie đ
Fourth Street, Santa Rosa will always be a magical spot for me, even if it's not like it used to be. Sawyers' closing broke my heart, but Treehorn still hangs in there. And, like evil Joseph Cotton, the aura of Guy Fieri drifts everywhere on the grease scented breeze.
Love uncle Charlie! Saw this movie when I was a little girl with my mother in the late 50s. Always remember you and uncle Charlie. I had a favorite uncle this movie scared me lol
Yes to both. Very excellent movie; and very nice city.
Glad you enjoyed it
Terrific acting and directing. I first saw this film on cable. When the mother ignores the small children who are visibly unhappy about it, I guessed that was Hitchcock. It had to be. I mean who else would have that in the 40's? What struck me about the film is how Wright's character senses her familia likeness to Uncle Charlie. Only she could see him because she could have been like him. It's in the blood. That makes him even more dangerous. Fate kills off that part of herself when Charlie hits the tracks and she's saved.
I've read this was Hitchcock's favorite film because it portrayed the presence & prevalence of pure evil not jut in small-town America but mostly in broad daylight with the sun shining.
GREAT MOVIE
Of all the movies Hitchcock made it was his personal favorite.
I was recently talking to someone who knew the area and I mentioned that I'd love to see Santa Rosa because of the small town I'd seen in this flick.
According to my friend it's all gone. Swept before the tide of impoverishment and meth.
A truly great movie!
I love Shadow of a Doubt. Wright and Cotten are terrific. As an aside, your fellow CZcamsr Jerome Weiselberry is also a great fan of the movie. You should check out her (yes, despite the name she is a woman) video on it. Cheers!
Great performances by Wright and Cotton in this one ... but I've always felt that Wright didn't have the career in Hollywood that she deserved. Her first 3 films all garnered her an Oscar nomination and yet after The Best Years of Our Lives she never got a role in a BIG film worthy of her talent - not to suggest she didn't make some fine movies afterwards, just none that could match those early years of her career.
Her post war film career just sort of evaporated. But, she did do stage work and a lot of television.
@@CinemaCities1978 True, she had a great career, just could have been greater in Hollywood and I feel like they squandered her talent.
Watched the movie, and it was wonderful. I don't think I have been to Santa Rosa......Maybe I've driven through the town.
Once again I am unaware of what seems like a great movie. On a non related issue, I was told that there's about half a million movies that have been made. So I wonder why you say eight million stories and have I been misinformed?
Thanks Sidney and all the best
The close out line is a take on the tag line from the film and close out line from the later TV show "The Naked City" The original line is "there are 8 million stories in the naked city, this has been one"
I will say, the film kinda shows its age when Teresa Wright falls for a cop in the movie despite the fact she's suppose to be in high school and that the romance dialog was written by the actress who plays her mom.
namesake "Charlie" graduated from high school the previous year....Although not mentioned in the film the war had gegun when it was filmed 1943, and many girls who might have gone to college had postponed it because of initial uncertainty. Would their fathers join the military, (some men in their 40's did). or their brothers, such that they would be needed at home? etc.
Obviously Charlie's father was way too old for that, but we are told that Charlie was a top student, and no doubt she would have become involved in war work as the war progressed. The detective might have been as young as 23 or 24, and hardly too old for a rather mature19 year old in those days. Young men are often much more immature these days compared to the 40's and 50's today, because they often have not been expected to be independent.
Boys in those day did not just live at home with mom and day for years the way they sometimes do now.
Charlie seems very mature to me, and 5 or 6 years was not considered too much gap for a marriage in those days.
This was good, but why only 4 minutes? This seems like a prelude to what should have been a longer examination.
I made this one back when I was still experimenting with what type of videos I wanted to make. I love this film and I want to make a longer video about it, I just haven't gotten to it yet.
â@@CinemaCities1978 I'd love it if you took another gander---it's weird how far away in time it is now.
Yes I have been there, and Yes I have seen Shadow of a Doubt, I think its kind of a underrated film in the Hitchcock canon.
Don't forget that Alfred Hitchcock made "Foreign Correspondent" straight after "Rebecca."
A lot of people seem to forget (or not even know) about âForeign Correspondent.â A shame! Frankly, I prefer it to âShadow of a Doubt,â which I could take or leave.
@@Kjt853Yes. It's a very underrated film.
And he also made "Saboteur" in 1942, the year before "Shadow of a "Doubt."
Hitchcock NEVER improvised but he had Patricia Collinge write her speech about her brother's accident as a boy.
Wasn't Cary Grant Australian?
He was born in Bristol, England.
@@CinemaCities1978 Thank you!
You should have mentioned that Thornton Wilder wrote the script.
very late to this, BUT... Hitchcock returned to Santa Rosa to make THE BIRDS in '63
It was Bodega Bay.
What? This is just a synopsis. More insight on production and background, please, CC.
With all due respect, CC posted this in the early days of her channel (as mentioned in earlier posts) and would like to give a more indepth analysis but has ot had the time. The additional insight you are seeking is available on Wikipedia. Cheers.
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One of the saddest it might have beens in cinema history was that Mercury Theater stand out Joseph Cotton was to play both Kane or when he was still aviator mad man Howard Hugues and too, was penciled in as Harry Lime against Orson as the Louis lamour western pulp writer. But as much as i love Orson, still it would have been nice to see him as both, and Col Kurtz thrown in. I think like playboy Hitchcock lost his soul when he sold out to dishwater blonds.