Rating: NR
Genre:
Spy Film
Release Date: 10/14/2008
SubTitles: English/Espanol/French
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 102 Minutes
Flags: Mild Violence, Adult Situations, Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: MGM
Though
Alfred Hitchcock's
Notorious was produced by
David O. Selznick's
Vanguard Films,
Selznick himself had little to do with the production, which undoubtedly pleased the highly independent
Hitchcock.
Ingrid Bergman plays
Alicia Huberman, who goes to hell in a handbasket after her father, an accused WWII traitor, commits suicide. American secret agent
Devlin (
Cary Grant) is ordered to enlist the libidinous
Alicia's aid in trapping
Alexander Sebastian (
Claude Rains), the head of a Brazilian neo-Nazi group. Openly contemptuous of
Alicia despite her loyalty to the American cause,
Devlin calmly instructs her to woo and wed
Sebastian, so that that good guys will have an "inside woman" to monitor the Nazi chieftain's activities. It is only after
Alicia and
Sebastian are married that
Devlin admits to himself that he's fallen in love with her. The "MacGuffin" in this case is a cache of uranium ore, hidden somewhere on
Sebastian's estate. Upon discovering that his wife is a spy,
Sebastian balks at eliminating her until ordered to do so by his virago of a mother (
Madame Konstantin). Tension mounts to a fever pitch as
Devlin, a day late and several dollars short, strives to rescue
Alicia from
Sebastian's homicidal designs. Of the several standout sequences, the film's highlight is an extended love scene between
Alicia and
Devlin, which manages to ignite the screen while still remaining scrupulously within the edicts of the Production Code. In later years,
Hitchcock never tired of relating the story of how he and screenwriter
Ben Hecht (who was nominated for an Oscar) fell under the scrutiny of the FBI after electing to use uranium as a plot device -- this before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A huge moneymaker for everyone concerned,
Notorious remains one of
Hitchcock's best espionage
melodramas. In 1992,
Notorious was remade for cable television; it goes without saying that the original is vastly superior.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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