The “Shadow of a Doubt” Remake House

Let’s be honest – remakes are rarely, if ever, good. Especially if they’re of the made-for-television movie variety. Despite that fact, when I heard that the house from the 1991 made-for-television remake of Shadow of a Doubt was located right across the street from the pad featured in the 1943 original, I just had to stalk it. (I blogged about the residence from the original film. located at 904 McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa, yesterday, for those who are interested.) As you can see above, the property is currently undergoing a major renovation, but, in the interest of being thorough, I figured it was worthy of a post.

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The 6-bedroom, 2-bath, 5,016-square-foot dwelling was originally built in 1878.

The two-story Stick Eastlake-style residence, which sits on 0.43 acres, was constructed for Dr. and Mrs. Augustus Wright. Amazingly, the property has only gone through two ownership changes throughout its 138-year history.

According to a Historic Resources Inventory performed on the house in 2014 in preparation for the renovation, the site is architecturally significant due to its “wealth of Eastlake detailing,” including a pedimented porch and spindle brackets located near the bay window, front veranda and balcony.

Per the renovation plans, much of the home’s original detailing will be kept intact.

In the 1991 Shadow of a Doubt remake, the residence portrayed the home of the Newton family. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), I could not find a copy of the flick anywhere. All I was able to track down was this 14-minute clip of it on YouTube, so the screen captures in this post are limited. As you can see below, though, the house looks very much the same today as it did onscreen 25 years ago.

I was rather surprised that producers went to all of the trouble to shoot on the same street as the original film, but did not use the same house. According to a 2002 SFGate article, though, the production team did, in fact, want to shoot at 904 McDonald Avenue. Unfortunately, Hitchcock, apparently already foreseeing the possibility of a sequel or remake, had included an exclusivity clause in his agreement with the homeowners, which, almost fifty years later, barred the 1991 movie from doing any filming on the premises. Producers of the remake liked the look of the neighborhood from the original so much, though, that they found a similar-looking property located on the same street and lensed the flick there instead.

Per the SFGate article, the home’s real life interior was also used in the filming. Though, as evidenced by my photos, that interior is currently being drastically changed and will likely be completely unrecognizable when renovations are complete.

As I learned from the Dear Old Hollywood website, the dwelling also made an appearance in the 1948 noir All My Sons as the residence of Jim Bayliss (Lloyd Gough) and Sue Bayliss (Arlene Francis).