Its thoroughly American origin, atmosphere, and elements he certainly knew thoroughly, its derivation from paint-by-numbers pulp murder mysteries, its hard-boiled loner super-masculine detective and femme fatale and plot that will only end in tears (or a cynical laugh).
This was his donnee for the film, its generative spark, the “thought” he “loved.” Noir gave Hitchcock a set of conventions to play with- and against. His daughter, Patricia, said it was “because he loved the thought of bringing menace into a small town.” For Hitchcock, part of the game in making his first movie set in America was to make it absolutely American, with a sweet comic surface and a heart as dark as the noirest of the noir. On at least four different occasions, Alfred Hitchcock said that “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943) was his favorite film, but never why.
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