Notorious (1946)

USA, 101 minutes
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Ben Hecht, Alfred Hitchcock, John Taintor Foote, Clifford Odets
Photography: Ted Tetzlaff
Music: Roy Webb
Editor: Theron Warth
Cast: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern, Leopoldine Konstantin, Reinhold Schunzel, Ivan Triesault, E.A. Krumschmidt

I count Notorious as one of director and cowriter Alfred Hitchcock's best, though time has marred it some for rancid attitudes. It's another movie from 1946 that is not entirely sure World War II is over, and still measuring the effects. It's a spy story but full of Hitchcock's ingenious tricks, with a nicely matched pair of glamorous performances in Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman, the disgraced daughter of a German-American Nazi given a chance to redeem herself on an undercover assignment—she is this movie's alarming drunk—and Cary Grant as Devlin, her handler. They are on the track of Nazis who are hiding out in South America and unnaturally fascinated with uranium. (As a matter of historical interest, the American CIA did not exist until 1948, when it was created under the direction of former Nazis by President Truman.)

But this movie and the US spy agency in it are from 1946, and if things are murky in terms of the ongoing perceived threat from German Nazis, they are perfectly clear in terms of doing right things. Alicia Huberman drinks like a fish and pretends to be cynical about everything, but secret recordings reveal that she despised her father's Nazi sympathies and treasonous actions and she actually loves America—loves it fiercely. Devlin shows up shortly after her father is found guilty and sentenced to prison, at the beginning of the picture, and recruits her for the assignment. At first all they know is that it is in Rio de Janeiro. While they wait for the specific details, of course they have a beautiful romance. But then comes the assignment.



Notorious is a weird mix of surprisingly candid interactions and exasperating attitudes. In order to get a drunken Alicia to give up the wheel on a late-night drive, for example, Devlin delivers a dainty but efficient sock in the jaw to knock her out. No harm no foul, apparently. We see Alicia's father found guilty and sentenced, and we see Alicia figuratively party till she pukes, but at some point everyone suddenly starts acting like she's also a low woman of loose morals. Nevertheless Devlin falls for her hard. It's a given that part of that for him is his natural pain and nobility for being able to overlook her past, and still carry on with her now. At the peak of their infatuated Rio affair, just after Devlin has learned of the assignment but before he has told her, she tries to jolly him up, saying, "The time has come when you must tell me that you have a wife and two adorable children and this madness between us can't go on any longer." He replies, "I'll bet you've heard that line often enough."

The assignment turns out to be getting close to an old family friend of the Hubermans, Alexander Sebastian (an oily Claude Rains who is perfect). He is now living in Rio and hanging out with Nazis at what appears to be an old set from The Magnificent Ambersons. These Nazis include his iron-spined matriarch of a mother, Mme. Sebastion (a pitch-perfect Leopoldine Konstantin). Sebastian, a bachelor, is much older than Alicia, but has had feelings for her in the past. They are quickly rekindled. This of course puts Alicia in extraordinary danger but the response back at spy headquarters is to snort and look down at her because of her skill in carrying it off. Or, as Alicia jabs back at Devlin on one of their clandestine meetings to exchange information, mentioning as an aside, "You can add Sebastian's name to my list of playmates."

These aspects hurt the film—the central romantic relationship between Devlin and Alicia is mostly unpleasant, but I think it is meant as more or less normal, romantic, and beautiful. It's hard to swallow. The movie itself seems to disapprove of Alicia, as if she deserves her many insults. On the other hand, Notorious is certainly one of Hitchcock's most skillful suspensers, much better than more clunky exercises from the era such as Suspicion or Spellbound, with which I have confused it before (one has Cary Grant, the other has Ingrid Bergman, this has both). Some of the best moments in Notorious come from the travels of a very important house key and the clarity it brings to the characters along the way, notably Sebastian.

This is another movie with a very fine finish—ending on a closed door as fraught with meaning as the closed door in The Heiress, and carrying nearly as much momentum as the final scene of Vertigo. They can all leave you stunned through the credit roll and beyond. Yet part of the effect now might be inadvertent. Side by side, today, Sebastian is nearly as likable as Devlin. Devlin is the hero of this movie, yes, obviously, and perhaps he was more sympathetic in 1946. But the latent sexism rubs quite a bit of the luster off now, and Sebastian doesn't always seems so bad. He would never imply to Alicia's face that he thought she was a slut, for example. So it hurts a little, even though he's a Nazi and it's beyond question best for Alicia, to see that door close.