Synopsis for
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) More at IMDbPro »

Couples in costumes in a room with 1900 décor are dancing to the music of The Merry Widow waltz by Franz Lehar.

A man dressed in a suit is lying on a bed, deep in thought. Money bills are on his dresser and tumbled on the floor.

A landlady knocks, opens the door and tells Mr. Oakley (Joseph Cotten) that two men were asking for him but she had followed his instructions, told them he was out. They are waiting outside at the corner. Oakley gets off the bed, picks up the money, goes out past the men, who do not react, but begin to follow him at a distance. He walks quickly, turns corners, loses them as he goes up a building and watches them from the rooftop, making sure he has lost them.

Oakley is at a pay phone, sending a telegram to Santa Rosa, California, telling his sister that he is coming for a visit and will arrive in a couple of days. He signs the telegram Uncle Charlie.

In Santa Rosa, a teen living in a two story house is lying in bed. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright), is frustrated by boredom, complaining to her father because nothing interesting ever happens in her life or that of her family.

Charlotte decides to improve things by inviting her favorite Uncle Charlie to come for a visit. She not only shares a nick name with her mothers youngest brother, but a special bond.

At times she feels the charming man is the only one who understands her need to be extraordinary, that there is more to her than her small town allows.

At the telegraph office she learns that he has just announced by telegram that he is on his way. She hums a tune, over and over again.

Her mother is radiant with pleasure at the prospect of seeing her youngest brother. She picks up the humming of the tune. Neither she nor Charlotte are able to identify it.

Oakley, on the train towards Santa Rosa, has kept out of sight behind Pullman curtains. As he gets off the train he walks looking downward and uses a cane as an old frail person might. However, as he sees the family coming, his walk becomes completely normal and he is effusively greeted.

There is much joy as he arrives at the Newton house and gives presents all around. Charlotte gets a special ring with a large emerald. She notices some engraved initials inside and asks her uncle about it, but Oakley claims no knowledge the initials were there.

Charlotte keeps humming her tune and asks around whether anyone recognizes it. Her father says its clearly a waltz, Oakley says he thinks its The Blue Danube, then changes the subject when others think thats not correct. [NOTE: The tune is The Merry Widow]

Oakley picks up the newspaper and begins reading. He notices a story that has special significance, takes out the pages, and calls the younger kids to see how he can fold the double sheet so it looks like a house, tearing out rectangular holes for a door and a window. They reassemble the paper without the pages used for the house, since the father hasnt seen the paper yet, and he hides the torn page in his coat pocket.

Later, Charlotte notices the hidden newspaper pages and steals them from her uncles coat pocket. She unwraps it and starts looking for something significant, but is interrupted.

Oakley has announced that he might stay a long while in Santa Rosa and goes to the bank where Mr. Newton works to make a deposit. At the bank his personality changes abruptly. He makes loud embarrassing jokes about embezzlements and crooked accounting. He deposits forty thousand dollars he is carrying in cash [enough to buy a nearly luxurious home in those days], still making aggressive unpleasant comments all around.

Soon after, Oakley learns that his sister has made an appointment with two men, one younger, one middle aged, who claim to be making a census type survey for an agency, claiming that the Newtons are a typical American family, and that they would be coming later to ask questions and take photographs.

Oakley gets unusually upset at the prospect of being asked questions and even photographed, refusing to see the two visitors, calling her sister names for being so naïve as to believe them. The two visitors come anyway. They are the same two men who were thrown off his track by Oakley back at his apartment. They ask a few questions and take some pictures, but their focus is clearly Oakley, who avoids them, refuses to answer questions alleging privacy rights. When one of them takes a picture of Oakley by surprise, Oakley gets very angry and successfully insists that the negative roll be handed to him.

The younger of the two, requests that Charlotte act as his guide around town later. Charlotte reluctantly agrees, to please her mother.

That evening he speaks to Charlotte away from the house, identifying himself as Detective Jack Graham and telling her that her uncle is one of two men who are suspected of being the serial killer known as the "Merry Widow Murderer" because his mode of operation is seducing wealthy widows and murdering them for their money later, by poison.

Charlotte at first refuses to consider that her uncle could be a killer, but she cannot help remembering how strangely he acted on several occasions. She starts to suspect that the uncle she once idolized is not what he appears. Particularly chilling is a family dinner conversation during which Oakley reveals a total contempt for rich widows, comparing them to fat animals readied for slaughter.

The niece's growing suspicion becomes apparent to her uncle. He confronts her and admits that he is indeed sought by the police, but claims all is a coincidence and he will be cleared once the other suspect is caught.

Later, she tries to reconstruct the crumpled and torn pages of the newspaper that her uncle had hidden, but is unable to come to a conclusion. She rushes to the library, which has just closed, but convinces the librarian to let her look at newspapers for just five minutes. She finds the paper and an article that describes the Merry Widow Murderer, and says one of the victims was once a famous entertainer, whose initials she recognizes as matching the inscription on the inside of the emerald ring her uncle gave her. When she shows the ring to her uncle, he begs her for help. She reluctantly agrees not to say anything, as long as he leaves soon, to avoid a horrible scandal in the town that would shock her family, especially her mother, who has always idolized her youngest brother.

The detectives have sent Oakley's surprise picture back East. Their conversation reveals that the roll of negatives handed to Oakley had been a decoy. But while they are waiting for any conclusions from the evidence of the picture, news breaks that the second suspect was killed fleeing from the police, and is assumed to have been the guilty one.

Jack Graham comes to tell Charlotte that their mission in Santa Rosa has ended. Jack then reveals that he is much attracted to Charlotte, would like to court her and maybe like to marry her someday.

Oakley acts calm and satisfied at first, and takes up a normal routine, but evidently can't relax because his niece fully knows his secret. Soon, the young woman has a near fatal accident: As she is coming down the steep back entrance stairs, one of the steps breaks in two and she was lucky that she was just at the moment grasping the handrail firmly. Later she inspects the broken wood but is unable to find telltale signs of tampering.

Oakley has agreed to give public lectures in Santa Rosa, and becomes somewhat of a local celebrity. On the way to one such lecture, the family is preparing to go in their car plus a taxicab, and during the departure preparations Charlotte is trapped in a closed garage with a car spewing exhaust fumes. Oakley is playing music very loudly inside the house, and delaying a planned departure, but Charlotte is saved by chance that a passing neighbor hears her inside the garage.

The moment Charlotte is proved to have survived that incident, Oakley announces that he is leaving by train the very next morning. Charlotte and her siblings briefly get on board to look at his compartment. The train departs with Charlotte still aboard, as Oakley physically prevents her timely descent from the train. Oakley struggles to control Charlotte's screams as well as constrain her for a while, waiting for the train to pick up speed before he throws her onto tracks alongside. But because one hand is busy covering her mouth, her survival instinct is able to overcome his greater strength, and he trips and falls outside into the path of an oncoming train.

There is a funeral for Uncle Charlie much attended by the people of Santa Rosa. Nothing has been said publicly about any connection to the Merry Widow Murderer.

Jack Graham has come back, to be with Charlotte. She admits she had withheld from him information about her uncle which would have confirmed him as the murderer, but Jack already knows and accepts that she acted to protect her mother from unhappy shocking news.

Together they resolve to keep Uncle Charlie's crimes a secret.