It’s the ’40s equivalent of the trophy gallery, where news cuttings and other, weirder images attest to the resident’s disturbed state - see THE HOWLING for what Fiona reckons is the earliest version of this, and ANTICHRIST for the latest. Joseph Cotten, as Uncle Charlie, is introduced as one of those serial killers who lie in bed and brood - see also David Wayne in Losey’s M.
The music and images of waltzing couples, slowly dissolving to skid row docklands in Newark, a striking incongruity that sets things in motion with a kind of lopsided unease. The Merry Widow Waltz - the return of the musical plot point - which was lightly touched upon in SABOTEUR, actually, but is much more fully developed here. In its light-hearted way, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is just as mature as REBECCA, and this one goes much, much deeper than either. SHADOW OF A DOUBT begins with the Universal globe, since like SABOTEUR this is a project made on loan-out to the free and easy Jack Skirball from the rigorous Selznick, and its brilliance should be enough to gainsay the suggestion that Hitchcock needed Selznick’s supervision to make mature films. Maybe Hitchcock’s first perfect film? Maybe his most perfect, too? Oh yeah, you can’t have degrees of perfection, can you? But maybe Hitchcock can.
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