Title: Notorious
Release Date: September 6, 1946
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Production Company: RKO Radio Pictures
Summary/Review:
I never knew how much I needed to see a drunk Ingrid Berman angrily cuss out a cop, but this movie satiates that desire. And that’s only the prologue!
Bergman plays Alicia Huberman, an American socialite whose father is convicted as a Nazi spy. Federal agent T. R. Devlin (Cary Grant) recruits her to help infiltrate a group of fugitive Nazis operating out of Rio de Janeiro. Much like The Stranger, the issue of Nazis continuing to operate was clearly a concern in the immediate aftermath of WWII, but I’m still impressed that entire films of fictional Nazi fugitives were written and produced so soon after the war. One odd thing about this movie is that while it primarily takes place in Brazil, I don’t think we see a single Brazilian character.
En route to Brazil and as they establish themselves in Rio, Huberman and Devlin fall in love. This leads to a racy-for-1946 scene where the couple kiss for over two minutes. Of course, considering that most human beings would like to kiss Bergman and/or Grant, this is also wish fulfillment for the audience. Like Hitchcock’s Spellbound, the romance leads a character to act unprofessionally, but this time it’s the male character Devlin, whose jealousy will ultimately put Huberman’s life in peril.
Huberman is tasked with getting acquainted with her father’s friend Alex Sebastian (Hollywood supervillain Claude Raines), a financier of the German war engine, and find out who he’s associating with and what the Nazis are plotting. The movie is a slow burn as secrets are revealed one by one and the steps that Huberman takes to gain access further strain her relationship with Devlin. It all leads to a satisfying denouement.
Rating: ****
Panorama of the Mountains 