Film Forum

U.S., 1943
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
With Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Patricia Collinge, Macdonald Carey  
Screenplay by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, Alma Reville
Approx. 114 min. DCP.

As wealthy widows keep disappearing, victims of the so-called “Merry Widow Murderer,” Joseph Cotten's lovable Uncle Charlie visits niece Teresa Wright in her average American town — a cozy family scene, until he’s heard whistling “The Merry Widow Waltz.” Often claimed as Hitchcock’s own favorite, this is perhaps his ultimate evocation of evil nesting among the mundane (and, along with PSYCHO, only one of two Hitchcocks with a villain as central character), with authentic Americana provided by screenwriters Thornton Wilder (OUR TOWN), Sally Benson (MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS), and Hitchcock’s wife (and closest collaborator) Alma Reville.

Presented with support from the Robert Jolin Osborne Endowed Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s

Reviews

“Hitchcock's first indisputable masterpiece.”
– Dave Kehr

“Hitchcock is perverse enough to suggest that the murderer’s bitter clarity is in greater touch with life than is the feeble virtue of the town’s residents.”
– David Denby, The New Yorker

“The film where Hitchcock first discovered America.”
– Slant