Notorious (1946)

'Notorious' is a classic psychological romantic thriller made in 1946, directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains. It was Hitchcock's ninth American film and it received only a lukewarm critical reception on release, but it is now held in high regard as a masterpiece of the romantic thriller genre, and as one of Hitchcock's finest works.

It received two Academy Award nominations - Claude Rains for Best Supporting Actor, and Ben Hecht for Writing Original Screenplay. In 2006, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry .

Plot

The story is tightly woven, and brilliantly sustained, and timeless in its portrayal of human character and emotion.

The plot seems simple, but of course it isn't. Toward the end of World War II, suave spymaster T.R.Devlin (Cary Grant) recruits loose-living Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the American estranged daughter of a convicted Nazi agent, to infiltrate a group of Nazi exiles in Rio de Janeiro. Having fallen for the man who has rescued her from her aimless, wasteful lifestyle, revolving round drink and men, Alicia is agonized when she feels Devlin is pimping her for the cause, and she is driven to take her mission to extremes by marrying the almost-fatherly fascist Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), the better to spy on him.

Inside Sebastian's chilly, luxurious mansion, Alicia earns the hatred of the true power among the evil exiles, Sebastian's smothering monster mother (Leopoldine Konstantin, a famous pre-war German actress giving an unforgettable performance in her only American film role), who supervises the slow poisoning of Alicia. At a party, with a classic suspense mechanism in the dwindling supply of champagne that will eventually lead to a servant venturing into the wine cellar where the angelic Alicia and the devilish Devlin are snooping, Hitchcock produces his most elegant and yet topical detail: wine bottles full of uranium being used to create a Nazi A-bomb. The payoff is an agonizing moment of discovery when Sebastian is duped into believing that his wife is only unfaithful as opposed to a spy.

'Notorious''s intense drama and masterly character development constantly force us to change our feelings about the three leads, with Rains even showing a bizarre heroism in the finale that should be unseemly in an ex Nazi. It's a recipe for danger, disaster and death that comes magnificently to the boil in these final moments.

The film is also a delicious romance, with Grant and Ingrid Bergman achieving the record for the screen's longest close-up kiss, thus flouting the Hays Code regulations which restricted the length of each kiss to only three seconds.

Production

David O. Selznick originally intended to produce the film and to this end he reunited the successful team of director Alfred Hitchcock, star Ingrid Bergman, and writer Ben Hecht from Hitchcock's psycho-analytical drama 'Spellbound' in 1945. He pushed through with customary enthusiasm the development of the classy, romantic spy story, but he eventually sold the whole package to RKO for $800,000 and fifty percent of the profits, and let Hitchcock produce it himself.

Shooting started in October, 1945 and continued until February, 1946. The camerawork, by Ted Tetzlaff, is stunning with the stars looking, and acting, their best. In one shot, Alicia, with a monstrous hangover, sees Devlin upside down, and as the camera pulls back we see him sliding across the floor towards her. This conveys a lot about Devlin's devious, untrustworthy character than mere words could ever manage. Hitchcock, it hardly needs saying, certainly knew how to use the visual medium to full and satisfying effect.

The outdoor shots were filmed in Beverly Hills and Baldwin Park and at the Santa Anita Racetrack near Los Angeles and in Miami, Florida.

The movie cost RKO about $2 million to make and it grossed $8-9 million.

Hitchcock makes his usual cameo appearance about an hour into the picture, drinking champagne during the big party at the Sebastian home.