Possibilty that he wasn't the real Charlie?

That's an interesting idea. There was a picture of him when he was a boy that
looked like him. I would think his sister would know him. You might be right,
though. Next time I watch it I'll check your ideas out.


Marge

I think you're reading way too far into it.

1. If there was any sinister significance of his childhood head injury, I'm sure that it was that it "tripped" something in his brain to make a latent darker aspect of his personality emerge; his sister Emma mentioned that before the accident, he read a lot, but after it, he stopped reading and became full of physical energy. I doubt Hitchcock was suggesting that somehow the family was given a different boy.

2. I think that tension is *supposed* to be off-kilter and unsettling.

3. I can't recall any instances of this, I'll have to rewatch. Maybe, if she talking about memories before his accident, it is just highlighting how his "original, good" self is lost to him.

4. Well, Uncle Charlie started murdering widows since they last saw him. Corruption shows.

Actually I was sure he wasn't the real Charlie, and expected that to be revealed at some point, but it didn't happen.

He was using different names in the beginning and when he sent the telegram to Santa Rosa, "Uncle Charlie" felt like just another fake name. Then his relatives thought he was now different when they picked him up. Young Charlie's first phase is "Are you?". Little Ann says "I remember you sort of, but you look different". He doesn't remember Young Charlie's beautiful dress, which "he" had bought actually. There were lots of similar suggestions in that direction definitely, not to mention his constantly avoiding to talk about the past, not remembering the childhood picture, etc, but maybe the director just wanted to trick us.

so, the whole family woudln't recognize their own relative? they were obviously close knit, because she and the uncle had the "connection" and they had talked of him visiting before.

blah.

Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...

1. Family members say these things even about terrible family members to keep up appearances.

2. There was no sexual tension. They were near each other because of the camera and close-ups are more dramatic.

3. It's because he's a changed person. He's evil now. He doesn't think much about how he use to be.

4. It's because he's evil now. Evil people have a different attitude and facial expression.

Unlikely, because it would have been revealed and would have be a better story line than the one in this film.

I agree. I think AH suggested this in the scene where Charlie claimed never to have had a photo taken, which his sister and niece then rebut.

Interesting thread, but I think the sister would have surely known if he was an imposter. Also, in the dinner scene where Uncle Charlie is opening the wine bottle, they do laugh about some childhood memories while the husband looks on with a sort of bored expression. The sister says something like "Remember when the jones girl got married".

The 1991 Mark Harmon made-for-tv remake did have him turn out to be an imposter. It robbed the story of a good bit of its effectiveness, but I suspect that the writers were trying to hint at the incest subtext a bit more openly (Cf. the scene where Charles kisses Young Charlie good night in her bedroom: on the lips, and just a bit too lingeringly); but because of television censorship, they couldn't have it turn out to be actual incest. So 'Uncle' Charlie turns out to be no relation to the rest of the family at all; just a clever (and apparently very well-informed) impersonator.