Shadow of a Doubt was not Hitchcock’s favorite
Not sure how this ever started but Truffaut asked him about it during their interviews for his book:
F.T. I take it that of all your pictures you’ve made, Shadow of a Doubt is the one you prefer. And yet it gives a rather distorted idea of the Hitchcock touch. I feel that the film which provides the most accurate image of the ensemble of your work, as well as of your style, is Notorious.
A.H. I wouldn’t say that Shadow of a Doubt is my favorite picture; if I’ve given that impression, it’s probably because I feel that here is something our friends the plausibles and logicians cannot complain about.
I guess it bothers me that this keeps getting repeated because Shadow isn’t my favorite of his either. It isn’t in my top ten. His late masterpieces like Psycho and Vertigo are so much bigger and richer. They’re fully realized works of a mature artist extending the form of cinema. Take, for example, the long sequences of Stewart following Novak around San Francisco, or Norman cleaning up after Marion’s murder. This is the “pure cinema” that AH mastered in his later years. It’s magnificent.
Okay, thanks for listening. Just had to get that off my chest.