Hitchcock had reason to consider Shadow of a Doubt his personal favorite among his films; in structure, it is perfection, in theme, radically disturbing. Joseph Cotten is the urbane Uncle Charles, hiding out in the small-town home of his sister, Emma. Is he the "merry widow killer" hunted by the police or is he innocent as he claims? Shot on location in Santa Rosa and co-written by Thornton Wilder and Sally Benson, the film blends satire and mystery in examining the effects of Uncle Charles' visit on a nastily nice community (full of wealthy widows), but particularly on his adoring niece, Charlie (Teresa Wright). She is his namesake, he is her Döppleganger and they are inseparably linked in the shadows of Joseph Valentine's cinematography. Charles' outré cynicism ("Do you know that if you ripped the fronts off houses you'd find swine?") threatens the girl with her own terrible knowledge.