Viewers will find it more difficult to maintain such naïveté. These details serve as foreshadowing, a bit of comic relief, and a vexatious doggedness by Wright’s Charlie, who tries – perhaps too indefatigably – to ignore all the warning signs. Plus, Joseph and his pal Herb (Hume Cronyn) are infatuated with reading Unsolved Crime Stories, which inspire them to discuss the different ways in which they would hypothetically murder one another. And in a twist of irony, the energetic, inquisitive young Charlie is fixed on uncovering all of his secrets, as if a playful game to get to know him better. His actions and mood swings grow more and more suspicious as he attempts to veil some terrible, dark secret. And it’s possible that he’s the one who’s up to no good.ĭanger and duplicitousness surround Uncle Charlie, evident not only in the ominous music that edges into the scenes in which he appears, but also with his unexplainable shifts in behavior – from concealing the chance that he might be recognized, to an odd gift, to a sudden distraction at the dinner table.
Instead, he’s hiding away from his pursuers. Her solution is to telegram her wealthy, adventurous Uncle Charlie, who is coincidentally already on his way to their home – but not to enliven their tedium. In Santa Rosa, young Charlie (Teresa Wright) is in a rut and severely depressed, worried about money issues for the family, her bank clerk father Joseph (Henry Travers), her overworked mother Emma (Patricia Collinge), and the general lack of excitement in their lives. But he slips past the men and sends a telegram to the Newton household in Santa Rosa, California – containing the only relatives he has in the world, and a great residence in which to hole up. Just outside waits a couple of persistent men who are clearly interested in catching up with Spencer – for some sinister purpose. Charles Spencer Oakley (Joseph Cotten) reclines, fully dressed, on a bed in a small apartment, with wads of cash spilling from a nightstand onto the floor.
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