With the publication of Wilder’s original script in 2007, questions as to the influence of Wilder on the film have been answered. Due to the employ of two other writers and the renown of Hitchcock as director and storyteller, “historians have for decades speculated as to how much of Thornton Wilder remained in the completed…film.” 2 That is, until recently. Hitchcock has manifest completely in his naturalistic style.” 1 Since its debut there has been contention over who deserves the credit for the story’s complex and masterful composition. The complete screenplay Wilder wrote for Alfred Hitchcock’s film Shadow of a Doubt is available in Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater.Īfter the 1943 premiere of Shadow of a Doubt, Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times, “Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville have drawn a graphic and affectionate outline of a small-town American family and Mr. Young Charlie starts to suspect that the man she once idolized is not what he seems and as her world shatters, she realizes that her life may be in danger.

However, upon the arrival of two detectives, one of whom becomes very close to young Charlie, and a series of unusual clues concerning the mysterious ‘Merry Widow Murderer’, her Uncle Charlie’s behavior begins to change. The Newton’s eldest daughter, ‘young Charlie’, decides that things need brightening up and resolves to contact her Uncle Charlie. The Newton family lead a quiet life in the North California town of Santa Rosa.

Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville.

I know without a shadow of a doubt