What we begin with, then, is the innocent Newton family and the sinister uncle, who moves into Young Charlie's room at the top of the stairs. Also in the family are her father Joseph (Henry Travers), her mother Emma (Patricia Collinge), and her young sister Ann (Edna May Wonacott) and brother Roger (Charles Bates). Travers was in his late 60s and Collinge around 50 when the film was made, and they look on the old side for Ann and Roger's parents but about right for the movie's apple pie symbolism. The next door neighbor, who drops in without knocking, is Herb (Hume Cronyn, in his movie debut). He and Joseph are crime buffs and spend much time in debates about methods of committing a perfect murder. Their asides are funny in themselves, and more so because of Uncle Charlie's discomfiture. His preferred method is strangulation with his bare hands.

So now everyone is onstage. The uncle, the family, the neighbor, the cops (notably the good-looking younger detective Jack, played by Macdonald Carey, who falls in love with Young Charlie). With Uncle Charlie seemingly content to spend the rest of his life in Santa Rosa, Hitchcock needed something to create a shadow of a doubt, and I suppose his MacGuffin this time is a story in the newspaper about the Merry Widow Killer. This story might have passed unnoticed if Uncle Charlie didn't unwisely and unsuccessfully try to conceal it. That triggers Young Charlie's growing suspicion that there must be more to her uncle than it appears. Charlie has a dark side to his nature, a way of narrowing his eyes and seeming threatening, that is later, somewhat awkwardly, accounted for by a head injury when he was young.

The engine of the plot then involves Young Charlie's suspicion and her uncle's paranoia and clumsy attempts to murder her--as if that would accomplish anything more than confirming the suspicions of Jack the cop. As plots go, this one is not a Hitchcock masterpiece, but it works because it generates suspense; how close to the truth will the niece come before she's killed or proven right? During the running length of the film the elements all mesh efficiently; it's later that the weaknesses grow evident.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46gqZ6ZpGK6sMLInmSsoJGZvLh5zp9kmmWUpMKjwIxqcG1r