SHADOW OF A DOUBT
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
"It's not good to know too much about someone, Charlie," Charles warns his niece, Charlie (Margaret Welsh), with a devilish grin. Charlie is infatuated with her namesake uncle, her "soul mate" as she calls him since her mother gave her his name.
There's a lot to know about Charles, not the least of which is that he strangled 3 widows back East.
Mark Harmon, who looks like anything but a killer but specializes in playing them, plays Charles, the Merry Widow Murderer in the 1991 Hallmark Hall of Fame remake of the 1943 Hitchcock film, SHADOW OF A DOUBT. And to avoid any questions about his guilt, we see Charles in action in the opening scene with his last victim.
The story takes place in the early 1950s in the small town of Petaluma, California, where Charles heads to avoid the police. John Gay's script uses most of the original screenplay by Sally Benson, Alma Reville, and Thornton Wilder. Karen Arthur's direction is certainly no match for the great master, but on an absolute scale, the movie maintains a high level of suspense.
When supercilious and deceitful Charles comes to pay a visit of indeterminate length with his sister and her family in Petaluma, they don't know about his nefarious activities. He showers them with elaborate gifts to buy the love they had already given him anyway.
Two mysterious and exceedingly clean-cut writers for a magazine show up to take pictures of the family for a spread on the "average American family," but their interest is focused on Uncle Charles, especially on taking his picture and learning about his background. Charlie, who first welcomed her uncle's visit, begins to feel more and more uncomfortable with him and suspicious of the disingenuous magazine reporters.
The picture advances with a delicate power using small details such as the newspaper article that the uncle tries secretly to remove and that Charlie discovers.
The beauty of the story is the pas de deux between uncle and niece as they try to out psych each other. She wants him to leave, and he doesn't want to go, what with a local, rich widow as a prospective victim. Will Charles kill Charlie first, or will she get him out of town. Harmon is wonderfully creepy and smug, and Welsh is tough but trapped.
With a deft touch the director sets up each scene, several with thunderstorms, and Tom Neuwirth's sepia-toned cinematography makes the movie feel as if it were filmed in the 50s. My only quibble is the director's awkward staging of the final scene on the train.
Is Hitchcock's version better? Of course. Is this one worth watching as well? Actually, yes.
SHADOW OF A DOUBT runs 1:40. It is not rated but would be PG for adult themes and would be fine for kids around nine and up.
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