Proto-noir shadows splash across the walls and ceilings, accentuated by the carefully modulated use of Dutch angles. Uncle Charlie literally brings darkness into the quirky Newton home. Only one of them calls Dracula to mind, though. Hitchcock introduces both in the same way: lying on a bed and staring at the ceiling. The two share a deep connection despite the distance between them. Teresa Wright plays Charlotte, and Joseph Cotten is her admired but seldom seen uncle. Shadow of a Doubt, the film of which director Alfred Hitchcock was most proud, is the story of two Charlies. Shadow of a Doubt and its descendant Stoker examine these men through the eyes of their nieces - intelligent young women who are too intrigued by their uncles to leave any stone unturned. Both interlopers even go by the same name, Uncle Charlie. I present the Newtons and the Stokers, two profoundly different nuclear families who share the same problem: a relative with a big, dark secret who insinuates his way into their home and brings violence with him. That may be true, technically, but there’s plenty of room for eerie similarities. Tolstoy’s most famous sentence asserts that every unhappy family is unique.
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