But young Charlie’s craving for excitement doesn’t match the lengths her uncle has gone to. They’re both forceful, stubborn characters. They share a kind of psychic bond: Wright thinks of sending Cotten a telegram, not knowing that he has just sent one, and she gets a waltz stuck in her head, not knowing that the same tune has a special, sinister connotation for her uncle. More than once they’re referred to as “twins”. It’s made abundantly clear that Cotten and Wright are two sides of the same coin. I felt that calling it a “doppelganger film” was a bit of a stretch… I was persuaded that the theme is there, but it’s far stronger here. One of the movies that came up was Strangers on a Train. In my recent review of The Man With My Face, I mentioned the Filmspotting podcast episode about doppelgangers. Menace dwells in unexpected places, and in a couple of harrowing, misanthropic (and wickedly misogynist) speeches, Uncle Charlie reveals the monster hiding behind the charming facade. Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten, in what might be his greatest performance) shakes things up, all right. The film that Hitchcock called his own favorite is a riveting portrait of innocence lost, of big city evil lurking in idyllic small towns. And it speaks to young Charlie’s (Teresa Wright) innocence, about to be shattered, chewed up and spit out. Not the greatest quote, I know, but I wanted to use something that wasn’t already on IMDb’s “Memorable quotes” page. “I know a wonderful person who will come and shake us all up! Just the one to save us!”
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