Notorious (1946)
July 26, 2023 7:57 PM - Subscribe
The daughter of a convicted Nazi spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of Nazi scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?
In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) recruits Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.
Zita Short: We don’t really see when Grant and Bergman fall in love or in lust and become close enough that they are kissing and presumably getting intimate. It was an odd choice on Hitchcock’s part to not give us the moment in which the music soars, Bergman’s eyes go all soft and Grant starts to call her baby. I suppose he is trying to imply that this is not an affair that is driven by love but these two people have simply fallen into this relationship because of the circumstances they are in. That was my charitable interpretation of his decision not to show us how this relationship started as I think that he probably just wanted to cut down the amount of time that Bergman and Grant had to spend in that car. We are meant to think that this is a grand love affair in which these two have genuine feelings for one another even though they both feel like they can’t trust one another. Grant is meant to be completely enraptured by her even though she has spent a significant portion of her life seducing men she presumably did not care about and she is meant to want to give up everything she has just to be with him.
Eve Tushnet: Cary Grant’s character hides his true feelings because of emotional repression, and maybe also because he thinks undermining the Bergman character’s confidence will commit her more deeply to prove herself through her mission. He’s a mess, and she responds to his mess with a kind of spite-virtue indistinguishable from self-loathing, and in theory I like that; I also like the showy camera angles, especially because they make it so clear that whenever Bergman’s on screen we’re within her character’s pov and on her side. But I just did not feel any chemistry between our leads. Bergman always tends toward the stiff and actressy, and Grant just didn’t strike sparks off her.
Dilys Powell: Or perhaps I should say the housefly's view; for the camera circles and hovers only to settle persistently nearer: nearer to the hand passing a key, the thumb tracing the label on a wine bottle nearer to the forshortened section of Claude Rain's face, nearer to Ingrid Bergman giving a doting tweak to the lobe of Cary Grant's right ear. Hitchcock has used all his box of tricks to jolt, to unnerve: the distortions, the shadows, teh watchful faces of melodrama. In a film consisting so largely of close-ups the burden on the players is heavy, and credit it due to Ingrid Bergman and in a smaller degree Cary Grant for playing which by shades of facial expression alone indicates the emotional undertones of the narrative
Trailer
In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) recruits Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.
Zita Short: We don’t really see when Grant and Bergman fall in love or in lust and become close enough that they are kissing and presumably getting intimate. It was an odd choice on Hitchcock’s part to not give us the moment in which the music soars, Bergman’s eyes go all soft and Grant starts to call her baby. I suppose he is trying to imply that this is not an affair that is driven by love but these two people have simply fallen into this relationship because of the circumstances they are in. That was my charitable interpretation of his decision not to show us how this relationship started as I think that he probably just wanted to cut down the amount of time that Bergman and Grant had to spend in that car. We are meant to think that this is a grand love affair in which these two have genuine feelings for one another even though they both feel like they can’t trust one another. Grant is meant to be completely enraptured by her even though she has spent a significant portion of her life seducing men she presumably did not care about and she is meant to want to give up everything she has just to be with him.
Eve Tushnet: Cary Grant’s character hides his true feelings because of emotional repression, and maybe also because he thinks undermining the Bergman character’s confidence will commit her more deeply to prove herself through her mission. He’s a mess, and she responds to his mess with a kind of spite-virtue indistinguishable from self-loathing, and in theory I like that; I also like the showy camera angles, especially because they make it so clear that whenever Bergman’s on screen we’re within her character’s pov and on her side. But I just did not feel any chemistry between our leads. Bergman always tends toward the stiff and actressy, and Grant just didn’t strike sparks off her.
Dilys Powell: Or perhaps I should say the housefly's view; for the camera circles and hovers only to settle persistently nearer: nearer to the hand passing a key, the thumb tracing the label on a wine bottle nearer to the forshortened section of Claude Rain's face, nearer to Ingrid Bergman giving a doting tweak to the lobe of Cary Grant's right ear. Hitchcock has used all his box of tricks to jolt, to unnerve: the distortions, the shadows, teh watchful faces of melodrama. In a film consisting so largely of close-ups the burden on the players is heavy, and credit it due to Ingrid Bergman and in a smaller degree Cary Grant for playing which by shades of facial expression alone indicates the emotional undertones of the narrative
Trailer
Hitchcock has always taken some shortcuts establishing the romance between his leads but in this case it doesn't bother me that much because I'm not convinced we're supposed to buy the romance between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. It's been a long time since I've seen this one, so maybe I'm misremembering, but I seem to recall his character as never getting close to being the partner Bergman's character would deserve.
It's Claude Rains who is devoted to her. Unfortunately he's a Nazi and thereby disqualified.
Unless I'm totally misremembering (certainly possible - as I said, it has been a while..) Rains gives the best performance in the picture, managing to be sinister and threatening but also lovestruck and pathetic. It's a delicate balancing act and the ending, where you somehow feel sorry for the nuclear-plotting Nazi as the protagonists get away and he returns to face his own doom, wouldn't be possible without his delicate handling.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:50 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's Claude Rains who is devoted to her. Unfortunately he's a Nazi and thereby disqualified.
Unless I'm totally misremembering (certainly possible - as I said, it has been a while..) Rains gives the best performance in the picture, managing to be sinister and threatening but also lovestruck and pathetic. It's a delicate balancing act and the ending, where you somehow feel sorry for the nuclear-plotting Nazi as the protagonists get away and he returns to face his own doom, wouldn't be possible without his delicate handling.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:50 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
Oh 100%, Rains is amazing in this, and yeah really walks the line. Interestingly to me, I don't think they ever call them Nazis, or at least I didn't catch it if they did.
As for the romance bit, I think the movie thinks it's made it's case, and we are supposed to be convinced. It did bring me out of the movie some as I was thinking if this was a bit by him or her to entrap the other one? But the movie was playing it straight, did I miss something etc, instead of just focusing on the film.
posted by Carillon at 9:44 PM on July 26, 2023
As for the romance bit, I think the movie thinks it's made it's case, and we are supposed to be convinced. It did bring me out of the movie some as I was thinking if this was a bit by him or her to entrap the other one? But the movie was playing it straight, did I miss something etc, instead of just focusing on the film.
posted by Carillon at 9:44 PM on July 26, 2023
I'm not convinced we're supposed to buy the romance between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant.
This has always been my interpretation too.
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 2:59 AM on July 27, 2023
This has always been my interpretation too.
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 2:59 AM on July 27, 2023
Rains gives the best performance in the picture, managing to be sinister and threatening but also lovestruck and pathetic.
Yes, this was the movie that really sold me on Rains.
posted by praemunire at 7:53 AM on July 27, 2023
Yes, this was the movie that really sold me on Rains.
posted by praemunire at 7:53 AM on July 27, 2023
The other noteworthy performance in the film, in my opinion, comes from Leopoldine Konstantin, the Austrian actress who plays Rains' character's mother.
As in North by Northwest, where Hitchcock cast Jessie Royce Landis as Grant's mother despite an age difference that would not permit such a thing in real life, Konstantin was apparently only 3 years older than Rains. And as with the casting of Landis in North by Northwest, I'm willing to not look too hard at Hitchcock's female casting issues because Konstatin is terrifying and effective in the role, which was apparently her only role in American cinema, though she was an accomplished actress in Europe before the war.
Speaking of North by Northwest, which I have previously described as "second-rate Hitchcock with first-rate production values", Notorious is first-rate Hitchcock suspense (and also first-rate production values, particularly the cinematography.) I can't exactly describe something with a perfect critic score on Metacritic as "underrated" but I'd say it's under-watched compared to some of his other films.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:57 PM on July 27, 2023
As in North by Northwest, where Hitchcock cast Jessie Royce Landis as Grant's mother despite an age difference that would not permit such a thing in real life, Konstantin was apparently only 3 years older than Rains. And as with the casting of Landis in North by Northwest, I'm willing to not look too hard at Hitchcock's female casting issues because Konstatin is terrifying and effective in the role, which was apparently her only role in American cinema, though she was an accomplished actress in Europe before the war.
Speaking of North by Northwest, which I have previously described as "second-rate Hitchcock with first-rate production values", Notorious is first-rate Hitchcock suspense (and also first-rate production values, particularly the cinematography.) I can't exactly describe something with a perfect critic score on Metacritic as "underrated" but I'd say it's under-watched compared to some of his other films.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:57 PM on July 27, 2023
As for the romance bit, I think the movie thinks it's made it's case, and we are supposed to be convinced.I remain skeptical how much we're supposed to rely on the romantic relationship between Bergman and Grant's characters.
Clearly she's supposed to have genuine feelings for him, but he's literally pimping her out to catch Nazis. He feels bad about it, yes, but he's still willing to do it.
In the complicated real world such things presumably happen. In the abbreviated narrative spectrum of 1940s-era cinematic romance I wonder if this doesn't run pretty close to being just as disqualifying as Rains' character's Naziism.
It absolutely diminishes our sympathy with Devlin, which only intensifies our attachment to Alicia as the only fitting focus for that sympathy. Which means that while the whole scenario might not work as traditional screen romance, the screen suspense is heightened considerably when she winds up in mortal danger.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:18 PM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
but he's literally pimping her out to catch Nazis. He feels bad about it, yes, but he's still willing to do it.
I left this movie wanting to punch him in the face, so.
posted by praemunire at 1:36 PM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
I left this movie wanting to punch him in the face, so.
posted by praemunire at 1:36 PM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
~Rains gives the best performance in the picture, managing to be sinister and threatening but also lovestruck and pathetic.
~Yes, this was the movie that really sold me on Rains.
I’m kinda shocked anyone has to be sold on Claude Rains. He’s another one of those actors who somehow lifts the watchability of any movie he’s in.
I love this era of Hitchcock. To me, it’s peak Hitchcock.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:12 AM on July 28, 2023
~Yes, this was the movie that really sold me on Rains.
I’m kinda shocked anyone has to be sold on Claude Rains. He’s another one of those actors who somehow lifts the watchability of any movie he’s in.
I love this era of Hitchcock. To me, it’s peak Hitchcock.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:12 AM on July 28, 2023
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I thought it was good, but I really did run into issues with the romance piece, Hitchcock does seem to assume that he doesn't need to show the romance develop at all, it's like a magic bolt that they're now in love! which I didn't like as much. The shots though were amazing. That long zoom across the whole entry hall into the key in her hand was just perfection. I was amazing by the camera shot as she's waking up hungover as it spins around Cary Grant just like she might.
Lastly, I'm sure this is easier when you have some distance from a movies values, either through time or moral change, but talk about a movie where the patriarchy is a villain. If they hadn't treated her with such disdain because she's a woman, and a loose woman too boot, she wouldn't have almost died by poison.
posted by Carillon at 8:07 PM on July 26, 2023