Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

in prison. As an homme fatal, Joe is also fatal to himself, especially in his bold and
desperate escape from prison.
Some classic noirs also include another male archetype in their plots who is not
necessarily a private detective: the homme attrapé, who usually does not oppose the
demands of society and very often survives. The mysterious but charming Uncle Charlie
(Joseph Cotten) in Shadow of a Doubt constitutes a good example when he first tries to win
over his niece, Young Charlie (Teresa Wright), and this is already done telepathically as
they both share the same name and the same thoughts. They are indeed the two sides of the
same personality: the shadow and the light or the good and evil. However, as the niece
investigates her uncle regarding the Merry Widow Waltz case (the leitmotif for Uncle
Charlie and his serial murders), she is gradually alienated by her uncle (fig. 37), and soon
Uncle Charlie’s deceptions make him a noir homme attrapé as his niece is now determined
to bring him to justice. In one of the classic sequences of the film, it is the murderous
Charlie rather than the virtuous one who falls prey to a passing speeding locomotive.
Figure 36. Raw Deal Figure 37. Shadow of a Doubt
The male leads in these two films, Raw Deal and Shadow of a Doubt, display
similar characteristics although they have different degrees of success. In both cases, the
two men make some effort to secure their future, but Uncle Charlie seems to deploy a solid
but attractive passivity (as a charming misanthropist and misogynist). However still, in
both films, the two men have their own distinctive modus operandi of seducing and
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