Reception
Upon release, the film received unanimously positive reviews. New York Times critic Bosley Crowther loved the film, stating that "Hitchcock could raise more goose pimples to the square inch of a customer's flesh than any other director in Hollywood". Time Magazine called the film "superb" while Variety stated that "Hitchcock deftly etches his small-town characters and homey surroundings".
In a 1964 interview on Telescope with host Fletcher Markle, Markle noted, "Mr Hitchcock, most critics have always considered Shadow of a Doubt, which you made in 1943, as your finest film." Hitchcock replied immediately, "Me, too." Markle then asked, "That is your opinion of it still?" Hitchcock replied, "Oh, no question." At the time of the interview, Hitchcock's most recent work was Marnie. When later interviewed by François Truffaut, Hitchcock denied the claim that Shadow of a Doubt was his favourite.
Today, the film is still regarded as a masterpiece. Contemporary critic Dave Kehr called it Hitchcock's "first indisputable masterpiece." Many other critics have agreed. Based on 30 reviews on the website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has received 100%, with a consensus of "Alfred Hitchcock's earliest classic -- and his own personal favorite -- deals its flesh-crawling thrills as deftly as its finely shaded characters". When asked by critics as to an overarching theme for the film Hitchcock responded: "Love and good order is no defense against evil". In his book Bambi vs. Godzilla, David Mamet calls it Hitchcock's finest film.
Read more about this topic: Shadow Of A Doubt
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)