Despite a stellar performance by Joseph Cotton and the solid (albeit not great) direction of Hitchcock, I found this film slightly underwhelming. It is more of a character study than a film which depends on a story and as such I just found that it had not enough going for it. It was pretty obvious from the get go that Cotton is the suspect and it would have been great if Hitchcock chose to toy with out expectations and ‘doubts’ a little bit more, making it harder to tell what is the truth and what just the hysteria of young Charlie. Also, I think that Teresa Wright did not carry her role sufficiently enough. Having a murderous Uncle in your house would usually cause unbearable levels of distress and trauma but she underplays it and seems only slightly alienated and uncomfortable. Imagine a young Vivien Leigh or Bette Davis in the same role, that would have been a fantastic psychological thriller.

Kudos to Hitch for the non-Hollywood ending and many modern movies could help themselves taking some inspiration from that style instead of dragging on into oblivious happy endings.

All in all, still a Hitchcock, still a Cotton, still a very good movie but no the masterpiece I expected it to be.