Thus, when Shadow of a Doubt's (1943) Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) sprawls on his bed languorously swirling a cigar between his lips, you can be sure that ugly business is afoot. Whether they happen to live in a Gothic mansion ( Psycho), a Manhattan penthouse ( Rope), or a Long Island estate ( North by Northwest), Hitchcock's bad guys often have an abundance of two things: money and time. When his baddies spring into action, the catalyst for their crime isn't necessarily greed, or lust. The problem with Hitchcock's villains is that they simply fail to perform their due diligence. Unless we are especially diligent, that evil can erupt into chaos at any time.
It resid es in a flock of birds, in a glass of milk, behind a shower curtain and even out on the dusty brea dbasket of the Midwest. In an Alfred Hitchcock film, evil isn't content to lurk just in the hearts of men. "There really resides in the heart of each of us a wild beast which only waits the opportunity to rage and rave and injure others, and which, if they do not prevent it, would like to destroy them." They want an ordinary human being with failings. They don't want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. "In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Professor Jordan, evil mastermind behind The 39 Steps, enjoys a family life any of us would envy.
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