The complete screenplay Wilder wrote for Alfred Hitchcock’s film Shadow of a Doubt is available in Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater.Īfter the 1943 premiere of Shadow of a Doubt, Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times, “Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville have drawn a graphic and affectionate outline of a small-town American family and Mr. Young Charlie starts to suspect that the man she once idolized is not what he seems and as her world shatters, she realizes that her life may be in danger. However, upon the arrival of two detectives, one of whom becomes very close to young Charlie, and a series of unusual clues concerning the mysterious ‘Merry Widow Murderer’, her Uncle Charlie’s behavior begins to change. The Newton’s eldest daughter, ‘young Charlie’, decides that things need brightening up and resolves to contact her Uncle Charlie. The Newton family lead a quiet life in the North California town of Santa Rosa. The result is an exciting and highly realistic film, whose new set cost, mainly for studio replicas, was well under the imposed limit.Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville. 13,000), Hitchcock with his cast and crew took over the entire city for four weeks, converted it into a complete motion-picture studio. Instead of building a studio version of a typical American city, his main setting, he searched for a ready-made one. Instead of elaborate sets he used the real thing. Accustomed to spending more than $100,000 on sets alone for one picture, Hitchcock made Shadow Of A Doubt by reverting to the "location shooting" of early movie days. LIFE magazine ran an extensive feature on the film's production in their January 1943 edition:Īs a director of one of the first movies to be produced under the Government restriction placing a $5,000 ceiling on new materials used for sets, has shown he has more than one trick up his sleeve.
Writer Thornton Wilder accompanied Hitchcock on a trip to the town in June 1942 so that they could incorporate local landmarks and buildings into the screenplay. Shadow of a Doubt was mostly filmed on location in Santa Rosa, California, during August 1942.
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