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| “ | Women keep busy in towns like this. In the cities, it's different. The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands dead, husbands who've spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money. Proud of their jewelry, but of nothing else. Horrible, faded, fat, greedy women... Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals, hmm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old? | „ |
| ~ Uncle Charlie's famous "Widows Speech". |
Charles Oakley, best known as Uncle Charlie, is the main antagonist of the late Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 film Shadow of a Doubt. He is a charming serial killer of wealthy, middle-aged widows who provokes the suspicion of his niece and namesake, Charlotte "Charlie" Newton.
He was portrayed by the late Joseph Cotten, who also portrayed Drew Bayliss in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
Overview[]
Charlie is a handsome, charming man who is liked and admired by virtually everyone he knows. Beneath this attractive surface, however, he is a woman-hating psychopath who seduces wealthy, middle-aged and elderly widows, only to strangle them to death and steal their money.
While the film never states a definitive reason for his psychopathy, it does reveal that he suffered a head injury as a child; childhood head trauma is a common feature among serial killers.
Biography[]
After committing his latest murder, Uncle Charlie fears that the police are catching up to him, so he returns to his hometown of Santa Rosa, California, to hide out. There, he visits his older sister Emma, who lives with her husband Joe, son Roger and daughters Charlene and Ann. Charlene goes by "Charlie" in honor of her uncle, whom she idolizes; she is ecstatic to see him, especially when he gives her an emerald ring as a present. He quickly endears himself to the entire town, but notices that two undercover police officers are following him.
One of the detectives, Jack Graham, tells Young Charlie that her uncle is one of two suspects in a series of murders, and asks for her help in solving the case. Young Charlie dismisses Graham as a liar at first, but then starts noticing Uncle Charlie doing strange, unexplained things, such as angrily refusing to have his picture taken and showing undue interest in a newspaper clipping about the murder of an old woman.
She discovers that the murdered woman had the same initials engraved on her ring and starts to wonder if Uncle Charlie is indeed the killer. Her suspicions are confirmed that night during a family dinner, in which Uncle Charlie lets his guard down and launches into a tirade about elderly, rich women, cursing them for frittering away the money their husbands spent their lives working for and comparing them to animals fit for slaughter. Horrified, Young Charlie runs out of the room.
Fearing that she will go the police, Uncle Charlie takes her to a bar and asks her to keep his secret for her mother's sake, saying that it would destroy her to learn that her beloved brother is a murderer. When Young Charlie asks him how he can live with himself after what he has done, Uncle Charlie fully reveals his true self, calling the world a "foul sty" full of "swine", and saying, "The world's a hell, what does it matter what happens in it?" While walking her home, Uncle Charlie promises to leave town and never return if she gives him a few days to prepare. Young Charlie reluctantly agrees.
Soon afterward, the other suspect is killed while running from the police, who assume that he was the murderer and close the investigation. Uncle Charlie is relieved, but still fears that Young Charlie will turn him in. He attempts to kill her twice, once by cutting holes through the stairs for her to fall through and again by locking her in the family's garage and flooding it with exhaust, but both times she survives.
Uncle Charlie announces that he is leaving for San Francisco, accompanied by a wealthy widow named Mrs. Potter; it is implied that she is his next intended victim. At her siblings' insistence, Young Charlie takes them on board the train Uncle Charlie is departing on to see his compartment. After they leave, Uncle Charlie restrains Young Charlie while the train starts moving, intending to throw her in front of another train and make her death look like an accident. As they struggle, however, she pushes him away from her and he falls onto the tracks, right in front of the train that was intended to kill her. He tries in vain to get away, but the train runs him over, killing him.
Days later, he is given a lavish funeral attended by the entire town, who mourn him as a local hero. Young Charlie can't bring herself to destroy her family and friends' illusions about Uncle Charlie, and so keeps quiet about his crimes.
Trivia[]
- Uncle Charlie is inspired by serial killer Earle Nelson, a.k.a. "The Gorilla Man".
External links[]
- Uncle Charlie in the Pure Evil Wiki