Joseph Cotten stars as Uncle Charlie, a calculating and charming killer who hides out in his relatives' small hometown. There, he befriends his favorite niece and namesake, Young Charlie (Teresa Wright). But she begins to suspect he may be the famed Merry Widow murderer. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues as the psychopathic killer plots the death of his young niece to protect his secret.

A favorite of Alfred Hitchcock himself, with an exceptional script by the playwright Thornton Wilder, SHADOW OF A DOUBT anticipates such family menace dramas as CAPE FEAR. Young Charlie Newton (Teresa Wright) lies on her bed in Santa Rosa, California, bored with her small-town life and family. Meanwhile, her namesake, Uncle Charlie, lies on another bed thousands of miles away in Philadelphia surrounded by discarded bills, deep in secret thoughts. The two are linked, psychic twins, and when Charlie goes to send for her uncle, she finds a telegram announcing his visit already waiting for her. Uncle Charlie brings happiness into the Newton home and a special pleasure to Mother. Yet Charlie feels a tension--as if her double, played with razor-thin menace by the mild-mannered Joseph Cotten, has brought violence into her home as well. Subtle clues add weight to Charlie's vague doubts. This growing knowledge shocks her out of the warm sense of safety that she held in her small world. However, her intuitive understanding is a long way from allowing the young niece to challenge her uncle, and the tense cat-and-mouse play between the two is powerfully dramatized, showing Hitchcock in his best form.