Hitch Has His Doubts.

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.
• Position: REEL WORLD - Alfred Hitchcock

ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S CAREER touched upon five decades, covering more than 50 films. His batting average for classics was phenomenal. There were the British comic thrillers "The 39 Steps" (1935) and "The Lady Vanishes" (1938), and a host of American gems, including "Rebecca" (1940, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture); "Notorious" (1946, a combination espionage tale and bittersweet romance, with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman); "Strangers on a Train" (1951, the psychopathic "trading murders" movie); "Rear Window" (1954, wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart taking voyeurism to new heights); "Vertigo" (1958, which many academics now hail as the greatest film ever made); "North by Northwest" (1959, with Grant as the ultimate Hitchcock "wrong man"); and the late groundbreaking horror films "Psycho (1960) and "The Birds" (1963).

Interestingly, Hitchcock's greatest sustained period of success was a time not unlike today, with Russia (then the Soviet Union) and Korea dominating the news. Domestic politics were controlled by the Republicans, and fears about nuclear war and demigods commanded the public forum. However, Hitchcock kept citizens distracted with additional big-screen escapism, such as 'To Catch a Thief (1955, with Hitchcock's favorite twosome, Grace Kelly and the indomitable Grant), and his American version of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956, with Doris Day's "Que Sera, Sera" winning the Best Song Oscar). The director even had a hit television series, with his opening and closing dry wit observations always stealing the show.

With all of this success--although Hitch incredibly never won an Oscar for Best Director (nor, for that matter, did Grant ever attain an acting Academy Award, having to be satisfied with an Honorary Oscar after his career essentially was over)--what picture for him was No. 1? The Master of Suspense pointed to "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943, with a dapper Joseph Cotten as a serial killer who marries and murders wealthy widows). The picture also was most liked by his wife and frequent collaborator, Alma Reville. Film critic Charles Champlin once said of the couple, "The Hitchcock touch had four hands and two of them were Alma's."

"Shadow" begins in a noirish East Coast boarding house, and quickly has Cotten's character, Uncle Charlie, holed up in a Frank Capra-like Santa Rosa, Calif.--with the family of his beloved sister, which includes a namesake niece Young Charlie (Teresa Wright). Always close, the two Charlies are...