drqshadow

6/10

Hitchcock teams with Ingrid Bergman and screenwriter Ben Hecht for the second time in as many years, following their Oscar-nominated collaboration in _Spellbound_. Bergman plays an emotional wreck in _Notorious_, on the rocks after her father is convicted of a war crime and swallows a dose of cyanide in prison. In the midst of a bender, she’s snared by a cocky government agent (Cary Grant), who whisks her off to Rio and promises rich rewards in exchange for a touch of undefined espionage work. Once in Brazil, things get messy as the G-Man falls in love with her and the details of her new gig are made clear: reconnect and flirt with an ex-suitor (Claude Rains) to learn the details of his Nazi smuggling scheme. Grant and Bergman are meant to be tragic lovers here, government-backed co-conspirators who are driven apart by circumstance just as they discover the flicker of mutual enchantment. Instead, they act more like catty teens with a grudge. Her seductive performance needs to be convincing to effectively reel in their target, but Grant sees betrayal with every fluttered lash and his jealousy also brings out the worst in her. They orbit, collide and recoil constantly, bickering through most of their status checks (maybe he wasn’t such a great choice as handler) and often threatening to blow their own cover. As a civilian, she can’t be reasonably expected to maintain her composure amidst so much drama, but he’s an experienced agent and should already know the score. Fortunately, their quarry is too lovestruck to see through the ruse, or at least to pay much mind until he’s already in too deep. I found that quandary, a manipulation victim’s desperation to extricate himself without exposing the goof to his superiors, far more interesting than the petty squabbles of the leading duo. Sir Alfred does a great job of ratcheting the tension beyond the point of comfort (his specialty), the cinematography is customarily magnificent and the screenplay features twists upon twists upon twists, but those central amateur acts (and I don't mean the actors' performances) threaten everything. For a bunch of alleged international masterminds, nobody involved seems especially good at keeping a secret or reading a tell. Love stories were hardly a Hitchcockian forte at this point, either, so it’s no great surprise that the leads’ romantic sparks are so forced and superficial. Hitch must’ve figured we’d accept an uncomfortably long make-out session - famously long, in fact - in lieu of chemistry, because we see little reason for these two to feel so attached beyond the swapped spit. It’s a compelling drama all the same, with an appropriately ruthless climax, but one that’s hamstrung by its dedication to the wrong kinds of intrigue.

CinemaSerf

0/10

Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant just ooze charisma in this classic Hitchcock story of espionage and romance. She ("Alicia") has taken to the bottle following the conviction of her Nazi father and is heading down the slippery slope when she is approached by "Devlin" (Grant) who offers her a chance to redeem herself. She is to ingratiate herself with a group of her father's cohorts in Rio and feed back her intelligence to the CIA. Once in Rio, she is reunited with her arch-Nazi admirer "Alexander" (Claude Rains) and, at the insistence of her new boss (Louis Calhern) she marries him. What now ensues is a cleverly developing tale of treachery and betrayal tempered with plenty of humour and a little romance (of course she and "Devlin" fall for each other). The photography is both grand and intimate, Roy Webb has scored this perfectly and Hitchcock uses Ben Hecht's story to full effect. This is a classic piece of cinema that I saw quite recently on a big screen - and it is well worth watching again!