Olivia de Havilland & Joseph Cotten in “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (1964).

Hal Wallis, Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten, 1945

Joseph Cotten at the 1951 Venice Film Festival.

Remembering Joseph Cotten on his birthday, here in JOURNEY INTO FEAR (‘42)

Joseph Cotten and Patricia Medina were married for 34 years, until his death in 1994.

The Third Man (1949), dir. Carol Reed

Premiered January 12, 1943: SHADOW OF A DOUBT, starring Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, and Macdonald Carey. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (Rebecca, Spellbound, Rear Window).  Shadow of a Doubt is reportedly Hitchcock’s personal favorite of all his films.  While it doesn’t have the glittering cachet of his other films from the period, such as Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), Lifeboat (1944), and Spellbound (1945), it is nonetheless a significant entry in the noir canon and a great film in its own right.  The film opens with Joseph Cotten on the run from authorities somewhere on the East Coast. We don’t know exactly why the authorities want him, but the enormous wad of big bills he carries suggests he committed a robbery… or perhaps worse.  After eluding the police, Cotten decides to leave the East Coast and come to California to stay with his older sister (Patricia Collinge).  Collinge’s teenage daughter (Theresa Wright) is especially fond of her uncle and is overjoyed.  Collinge and her husband (Henry Travers) live an idyllic life with three delightful children, a charming home, friends, and plenty of community activities.  When Cotten arrives, he quickly insinuates himself into the quaint small-town lifestyle enjoyed by the family.  However, it doesn’t take long for his past to catch up with him in the form of two agents (Macdonald Carey and Wallace Ford) who tracked him across the country.  The agents still need to gather more evidence before they can be absolutely certain Cotten is the right suspect, so they don’t want to approach him directly and risk scaring him off again.  Instead, they approach Wright and ask her to act on their behalf, but when she learns they suspect Cotten of several brutal murders, she refuses to believe it and won’t cooperate.  But the well has been poisoned and Wright becomes increasingly suspicious and fearful of Cotten as small bits of incriminating information come to her attention.  Hitchcock’s expert pacing ensures the tension builds very slowly until the suspense reaches a boiling point and Wright finds herself in a perpetual state of danger.  Thematically, Shadow of a Doubt is similar to several other Hitchcock films, in particular, Suspicion, where the story starts out harmlessly enough, with a fair amount of humor thrown in, but gradually transforms into a dark tale of terror.  In Shadow of a  Doubt, Travers and his best friend (Hume Cronyn) frequently discuss methods of killing one another without leaving any evidence.  Initially, their lighthearted banter is quite amusing, but as Wright begins to realize the truth about Cotten, their conversations become increasingly disturbing to her and to the audience.  What really makes Shadow of a Doubt so unsettling is that it strikes directly at the heart of idealized American life in the 1930s and early 40s.  Shaken by the horrors of war and the trauma of soldiers returning home, a growing sense of unease and uncertainty about the future pervaded American society.  Film noir reflected this anxiety and brought it to the surface by eschewing conventional Hollywood entertainment in favor of gritty films about the dark side of human nature.  In Shadow of a Doubt we are treated to a clear vision of this emerging noir landscape when Cotten delivers a pointed speech to Wright:

“There’s so much you don’t know. So much.  What do you know, really?  You’re just an ordinary little girl living in an ordinary little town.  You wake up every morning of your life and you know perfectly well that there’s nothing in the world to trouble you.  You go through your ordinary little day, and at night you sleep your untroubled ordinary little sleep filled with peaceful stupid dreams.  And I brought you nightmares.  Or did I? Or was it a silly inexpert little lie? You live in a dream.  You’re a sleepwalker, blind.  How do you know what the world is like?  Do you know the world is a foul sty?  Do you know if you rip the fronts off houses, you’d find swine? The world’s a hell.”

 Noir films would offer penetrating glimpses into that hell for the next two decades and beyond, and Shadow of a Doubt is one great example.  Cotten and Wright are superb in their roles, and they are supported by a first-rate cast of actors, an intelligent script, and a legendary director at the top of his game.  We give Shadow of a Doubt 5 out of 5 fedoras.

Released February 12, 1943: JOURNEY INTO FEAR, starring Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Rio, and Orson Welles. Directed by Norman Foster (Scotland Yard, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Woman on the Run).  Joseph Cotten is an American munitions dealer traveling through Turkey, who stops in Istanbul before flying home the next morning.  Cotten has valuable information to take back to his company that will help Turkey’s war effort against the Nazis.  However, while in Istanbul, an attempt is made on his life, so the head of the Turkish secret police (Orson Welles) arranges to have Cotten smuggled out on a cargo ship to escape his assassins.  At first it seems like the plan is a success, but not long after the ship leaves port, Cotten soon finds himself in peril once again.  This is a highly atmospheric film, populated with distinctive characters and exquisite black and white visuals.  The opening sequence in which assassin Jack Moss prepares to go out for the evening while listening to a scratchy phonograph in his tiny hotel room is wonderfully gritty and oozes with dark textures.  Moss himself, is perhaps the most memorable character in the film, even though he doesn’t utter one single word of dialog.  His Coke-bottle glasses, heavy-eyed gaze, obsession with music, and matter-of-fact pursuit of his target, create an unforgettably quirky villain.  Cotten, who co-wrote the screenplay with Welles, delivers a somewhat low-key performance as a confused and indecisive man trying to stay alive in unfamiliar surroundings.  Fortunately, Cotten’s substantial screen presence helps to overcome any lack of charisma in his performance.  On the other hand, Dolores del Rio offers up plenty of smoldering charm and charisma as a cabaret dancer who befriends Cotten on the cargo ship.  However, her role in the story is ambiguous at best and largely irrelevant.  She ends up being nothing more than a tantalizing distraction, which is an unfortunate waste of a top-billed actor.  The rest of the cast is made up of a wonderful collection of colorful characters, most with exotic accents and conspicuous idiosyncrasies. Among them are Everett Sloane and a young Agnes Moorehead.  Cotten interacts with nearly all of them during his journey, which can be interesting to watch, but also creates confusion in the story, possibly mirroring Cotten’s own disoriented state of mind.  Journey Into Fear is an interesting but somewhat frustrating film.  For all its expressive atmosphere, foreign intrigue, and richness of character, it never really manages to bring you to the edge of your seat.  The level of suspense rises occasionally, but it feels like the film never achieves its true potential and may leave some viewers disappointed.  We give Journey Into Fear 3 out 5 fedoras.

The Nailed Down Look.

Joseph Cotten, with Joan Fontaine, Excelsior Hotel, Rome, 1949.

Behind the scenes shot of Orson Welles talking to actors. 

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) 

Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten during filming of Shadow of a Doubt

‘’Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte’’ - 1964 (Bette Davis)

Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright in Alfred Hitchcock’s SHADOW OF A DOUBT (’43)

Joseph Cotten surrounded by the ladies in CITIZEN KANE (‘41)