Hot 888 Mama
" . . . by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money." This quote, from SHADOW OF A DOUBT director Alfred Hitchcock's stand-in character in the actual feature, Uncle Charles--a.k.a., the "Merry Widow Killer"--(played by Joseph Cotten) is repeated in this extra, "BEYOND DOUBT: THE MAKING OF HITCHCOCK'S FAVORITE FILM," to drive home the point that DOUBT really IS (or was) Hitch's Fave because it best drove home his most important precept: Husbands, you better enjoy every penny of your assets while you're alive (preferably with your wife), because if you don't, your widow will squander every hard-earned cent you ever "pinched" however she d&$@ well pleases! Hitch always emphasized that life is unfair, most especially to the Do-Gooders who try to level the playing field and restore a modicum of sanity, such as Uncle Charles. Does this would-be Robin Hood, skimming the cream of ill-gotten gains to devote to his more rational philanthropic purposes, get any thanks for his risky business plan? Watch the feature to find out.
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This is the featurette on the DVD of Shadow of a Doubt. It consists of interview with cast(including several of the leads) and crew(well, some, anyway... and Peter Bogdanovich is, as usual, among the best to listen to in this) and clips of the film. They talk about how much of a storyteller Hitch(R.I.P.) was(and yes, we get a few examples of his sardonic wit... who else could the quote in the summary line possibly be attributed to?), the excellent camera-work, how this did not rely on star power, and how this was about bringing evil to innocent, small town America, introducing menace where before there was none, and about the growth of a young and, until then, relatively naive girl. The documentary of course spoils the movie. It is very well-cut, except for one bit of wonky audio editing(that they may not have been able to get around), and it is pretty interesting throughout. This comes to 34 minutes sans credits, and one extra with them. It keeps to a pretty nice pace. There is a bit of disturbing content, and a little violence in this. I recommend this to any fan of Alfred. 7/10
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