Teresa Wright died...

I know, I know, we've all gotta go sometime...and 86 years ain't bad...

Still, I've only known her for 19 of them (we first met when I was atween, discovering that the PBS late show could make up for anyamount of drunken brawling that went on in the space beyond my bedroomdoor)  I wouldn't say that I "escaped' into the world ofmelodramas, screwballs, and noirs--but I certainly gave that old blackand white TV (along with my dog Shelly, and my cat Marbles) my fullattention... Call it meditation, with smiles and tears. And TeresaWright was one of the greatest people that I ever concentrated on.

That news story I linked to up there--it's pretty lame...

Take this f'rinstance:

In 1943 Hitchcock made canny use of her innocent demeanour in Shadow of a Doubt (she played the doting niece who gradually realises that her belovedUncle Charlie may have murdered several susceptible widows); and withher homely looks she slotted easily into the postwar domestic tapestryof Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

That's an atrocity, frankly... I would argue that Wright's performance in Shadow of a Doubtis the finest by any actress in the Master's oeuvre. "Canny use"? No.For once in his life, Hitchcock lost control of that film. It breaksout of the auteurist mold. The actors--the "cattle"--fight back... andWright led the stampede. In a Capra, or Dieterle, or Cassavettes, orBorzage, you take it for granted that the actor's subjectivity will begiven fair play. These directors specialize in the exhibition ofpersonality supernovae... In Hitchcock (or Kubrick), it's the framethat counts--the prison is the focus, not the prisoners...

Except in Shadow of a Doubt.--

oh the Hitchockian view is represented alright--Joseph Cotten (as Uncle Charlie) does the honours:

Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you ripped thefronts off houses you'd find swine?

You think you know something, don't you? You think you'rethe clever little girl who knows something. There's so much you don't know . . .so much. What do you know really? You're just an ordinary little girl livingin an ordinary little town. You wake up every morning of your life andyou 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 broughtyou nightmares.