Background
Notorious (1946)
is a classic Hitchcockian post-war psychological suspense/thriller.
The basis of the film came from the 1921 Saturday Evening
Post two-part short story "The Song of the Dragon" by
John Taintor Foote. The master of suspense created a compelling
spy mission interwoven with a romantic love story. The dark,
intricate film is thematically concerned with both political
(and sexual) betrayal and issues of trust, friendship, and duty
embodied in the characters' relationships. It was remade in 1992
as a TV-movie, with John Shea as Devlin, Jenny Robertson as Alicia,
Jean-Pierre Cassel as Sebastian, and Marisa Berenson as Katarina.
Hitchcock tells the subtle tale of a beautiful but
confused and agonized American spy (Ingrid Bergman) with a reputation
for loose living as a playgirl (she is the American-born daughter
of a convicted Nazi sympathizer) who unwillingly infiltrates an evil
German cartel by marrying the Rio-based enemy leader living there
incognito. A love triangle develops between three of the characters
- the Nazi villain, a federal agent, and the woman. After seducing
(and betraying) her loving husband, she begins to feel perilous menace
from both the man she really loves - an icy, seemingly insensitive
and cruel American intelligence agent (Cary Grant) on the assignment
- and her husband (Claude Rains), a man who is fixated with and controlled
by his overcritical, partly-jealous mother figure (Leopoldine Konstantin).
In the film's twisted finale, Bergman is rescued before her untimely
death from poisoning.
One of Hitchcock's best and most popular films, his
ninth American film, it is most notable for its use of a realistic MacGuffin -
something around which the film's plot revolves. In this film, the
'red herring' narrative device is a sample of uranium concealed in
sand within wine bottles, a top-secret substance needed to manufacture
an atomic weapon. The specific mention of uranium in Ben Hecht's
screenplay was timely and prescient - the atom bomb had just been
dropped on Japan a few months before shooting began on the film.
Originally, the MacGuffin for this film was to have been diamonds.
Another subtle symbol in the film is a key, and a third
major motif is the drinking of lethal substances (either alcohol
or poison) - to either seek refuge from reality or to bring harm.
The most celebrated segments in the film are a marathon, prolonged
erotic kissing scene (that circumvented the 'three-second' censor's
restrictions), a swooping camera crane shot down to an extreme closeup
of the wine-cellar key held in Bergman's hand (posters for the film
always included a key motif), the wine-cellar sequence, and the suspenseful
final scene with masterful inter-cutting.
As with many Hitchcock films, it was not lauded by
its contemporary critics, and received only two Academy Award nominations:
Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains) and Best Original Screenplay
(Ben Hecht). Stars Cary Grant (with his second of four appearances
for Hitchcock) and Ingrid Bergman (with her second of three appearances),
both at the height of their careers as a glamorous leading man and
sultry beauty respectively, were denied nominations. The film's producer,
David O. Selznick, had originally wanted Vivien Leigh for Ingrid
Bergman's role.
The Story
The credits are played above a view of the city
of Miami, Florida in April 1946, set low on the horizon. A title
sets the location and time: "Miami, Florida, Three-Twenty
P.M., April the Twenty-Fourth, Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Six..." The
film begins with a closeup of a hand holding a camera with a
flashbulb. The camera then pans across a group of reporters and
photographers who are lined up outside the door of the U.S. District
Court. A bailiff peeks through a partially-opened courtroom doorway,
viewing inside the courtroom an impenitent defendant (flanked
by lawyers) objecting to his sentencing for treason - and threatening
a dire prediction the "next time":
You can put me away, but you can't put away what's
going to happen to you and to this whole country. Next time,
next time we are going to...
The man on trial is the notorious Nazi fifth-columnist,
John Huberman (Fred Nurney), found guilty of treason against the
United States and sentenced to 20 years in a penitentiary. The court
is adjourned. Someone calls out: "Here she comes!" swinging
the doors open. As the courtroom audience exits, the camera follows
the face of a silent young woman with a black, broad-brimmed hat.
Called "Miss Huberman" by the male reporters, she is assailed
with flashbulb photographs and probing questions from several newsmen
regarding the convicted German man, her father. As she passes out
of view and the crowd passes by, the camera focuses on two other
suspicious-looking men. One says to the other:
"Let us know if she tries to leave town."
That evening, a wild party is held in a middle-class
residence in Miami. In a lengthy take, the beautiful young, spoiled,
playgirl daughter, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) banters with
the guests and drinks heavily. Her first major line of dialogue in
the film portrays her emotional pain:
The important drinking hasn't started yet.
A bemused, soused couple speaks about "fish" -
as she serves a drink to an unknown "handsome" man viewed
only from behind as a darkened, silhouette of a head. One of Alicia's
friends asserts that she brought him - he's not a "party crasher." Embittered,
Alicia discusses how she is a "marked woman" and followed
constantly by police [an ironic statement since she will be followed
for most of the film by government agents and the male lead silently
sitting in her company]:
I hate low, under-handed people like policemen,
pussy-footing after you. Of course, I'm a marked woman, you
know? I'm liable to blow up the Panama Canal any minute now.
Feeling pain after her father's imprisonment, her plan
is to escape the attentions of the press and police - and her entire
existence - by leaving the next day for a holiday on a sailing cruise
ship to Havana with the Commodore (Charles Mendl): "We'll just
sail away":
Drunk Guest: You show me a fish and I'll show
you a liar.
Alicia: What this party needs is a little gland treatment.
Commodore: We'd better start breaking up, Alicia. We have to
be on board at nine. One week in Havana and this whole thing
about your father will have blown over.
Alicia: Do you love me, Commodore?
Commodore: You're a very beautiful woman.
Alicia: I'll have another drink to appreciate that.
The silent, dark stranger sits perfectly still and
unresponsive, watching her thirst (for attention and ultimately for
love - the "gland treatment"
she spoke about) being satiated by drink. Brightly lit and animated,
Alicia acts romantically footloose and flirts with him: "You know
something? I like you." After all the guests have left her "perfectly
hideous party," an inebriated Alicia on a drinking binge sits
alone at the table, eyeing the cool, tall, well-dressed man as they
finish the last of the drinks. He slyly notes her self-destructive
alcoholism:
Stranger: There's one more drink left apiece.
It's a shame about the ice.
Alicia: What is?
Stranger: Gone.
Alicia: Who's gone?
Stranger: The ice.
She smiles and giggles as she notes her appreciation
of love songs: "There's nothing like a love song to give you
a good laugh." Because it's "stuffy"
in the house, she invites him to a "picnic" in a provocative, double-entendre laden
conversation, linked to him by drinking out of the same glass:
Alicia: It's too stuffy in here for a picnic.
Do you want to finish that? (gesturing toward his drink)
Stranger: It's a shame to leave it. (He downs most of the drink)
Alicia: You're quite a boy. (She finishes his drink) My car is
outside.
Stranger: Naturally.
Alicia: Do you wanna go for a ride?
Stranger: Very much. What about your guests?
Alicia: They'll crawl out under their own steam. I'm, I'm gonna
drive. That's, that's understood.
Stranger: Don't you need a coat?
Alicia: You'll do.
When they go outside into the breezy evening air, he
notices that she has a bare midriff. Exhibiting his puritanical nature,
he covers her nakedness with his scarf: "Wait a minute. Let
me put this on you. You might catch cold."
[A symbolic gesture, repressing and covering up her bold and aggressive
sexuality.] Alicia takes him for a drive - as she recklessly weaves
along the palm-fringed road, she drunkenly asks if he is scared. He
replies that he isn't, but his hand is positioned near the wheel, ready
to take control if necessary. She complains that she cannot see because
of the "fog" until it is found that her view is obscured
by her hair covering her eyes. She dares to go even faster than 65
mph to wipe the self-possessed, controlling look off his face:
I want to make it 80 and wipe that grin off your
face. I don't like gentlemen who grin at me.
A motorcycle cop chases after them, but then apologizes
and backs off when the stranger passes his identification card in
front of her. The officer salutes him and rides off. Expecting a
ticket for drunk driving, a drunken Alicia asks him: "Where's
the ticket?" And then she discovers his name is T. R. Devlin
(Cary Grant) [a symbolic, diabolical name]. Furious, she accuses
him of being another cop who has been deliberately hanging around
her as a "double-crossing buzzard - you're a cop!...a federal
cop crashing my party...you're trailing me to get something on me." When
she struggles with him to get him out of the car, he attempts to
take her home. Finally, he must knock her out with a quick punch
to her jaw to take over the driver's wheel.
The next morning, after waking up with a tremendous
hang-over, Alicia finds the unwelcome Devlin still there. He is coaxing
her to drink a glass of juice next to her bed (photographed prominently
in the foreground) - a cure for her hangover. She notices him standing
shadowy and menacing in the doorway. In a visually distorted, point-of-view
shot, Alicia's head spins 180 degrees. Devlin's slightly-angled image
turns clockwise as he approaches until he is shown standing upside
down. She disgustingly calls him a "copper," suspicious
of his motivations to cure and revive her. He explains that he is
an American intelligence officer with a secret mission to enlist
her to infiltrate and spy on the Rio de Janeiro home of her
father's old associates ("German gentry") - they are part
of I. G. Farben, a world-wide German chemical cartel still at large
in Brazil.
Because she is the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy
and presumably resents the imprisonment of her father, she would
be trusted by her father's top Nazi associates - and thereby above
suspicion to flush them out:
Alicia: What's this all about, huh? What's your
angle?
Devlin: What angle?
Alicia: About last night.
Devlin: Just wanted to be friends.
Alicia: Friends, yeah. You could frame me, hmm?
Devlin: No, I've got a job for ya.
Alicia: (unsteadily) Oh well, don't tell me. There's only, oh,
there's only one job that you coppers would want me for. Well
you can forget it Mr....
Devlin: Devlin.
Alicia: What?
Devlin: Devlin.
Alicia: I'm no stool-pigeon, Mr. Devlin.
Devlin: My department authorized me to engage you to do some
work for us. There's a job in Brazil.
Alicia: Oh, go away. The whole thing bores me.
Devlin: Some of the German gentry who are paying your father
are working in Rio. Ever hear of the I. G. Farben Industries?
Alicia: I tell you, I'm not interested.
Devlin: Farben has men in South America, planted there before
the war. They're cooperating with the Brazilian government to
smoke them out. My chief thinks that the daughter of a, uh...
Alicia: A traitor?
Devlin: Well, he thinks you might be valuable in the work. They
might sell their trust to you. And you could make up a little
for your daddy's peculiarities.
Alicia: Why should I?
Devlin: Patriotism.
Alicia: That word gives me a pain. No thank you. I don't go for
patriotism, nor, or patriots.
Devlin: I could dispute that with you.
Alicia: Waving the flag with one hand and picking pockets with
the other. That's your patriotism. Well, you can have it.
After her initial reluctance, Devlin must contradict
her claims to persuade and convince the "hard-boiled" lady
to atone for her father's sins and accept his offer. He plays a recording
of an argument that she had with her father in Miami Beach, Florida
on January 9, 1946. It is "some of the evidence that wasn't
used at the trial" in which she opposed her father and refused
to work for him. She repudiated her father and claimed that he betrayed
the United States, and she expressed her love, patriotism and loyalty
to the US:
Alicia: I told you before Christmas I wouldn't
do it.
Father: You can use your judgment. You can have anything you
want. The work is easy.
Alicia: I won't listen, Father.
Father: This is not your country, is it?
Alicia: My mother was born here. We had a right of citizenship.
Father: Where is your judgment? In your feelings you are German.
You've got to listen to me. You don't know what we stand for.
Alicia: I know what you stand for - you and your murderous swine.
I've hated you ever since I found out.
Father: My daughter don't talk to me like that.
Alicia: Stay on your side of the table.
Father: Alicia, put your voice down.
Alicia: I hate you all. And I love this country. Do you understand
that? I love it. I'll see you all hang before I raise a finger
against it. Now go on and get out of here. So help me, I'll turn
you in. Don't ever come near nor speak to me again about your
rotten schemes.
Sobered after listening to the conversation, Alicia
still maintains that she wasn't a traitor: "I didn't turn him
in." However, she refuses to be involved in Devlin's "rotten
schemes." Resisting his offer, she objects:
Go away and leave me alone. I have my own life
to lead. Good times. That's what I want, and laughs with people
I like. And no underhanded cops who want to put me up in a
shooting gallery, but people of my own kind, who treat me right
and like me and understand me.
The Commodore, who is planning on taking Alicia on
a sail to Havana, leans in the doorway and notifies her of their
departure. Alicia must decide between leaving immediately, or joining
Devlin on a plane the next day to Rio. She reluctantly agrees to
undertake the mission to help the US government, and cancels her
holiday plans.
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