In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based entirely on where my interests lead me.
One thing I like about Alfred Hitchcock’s films are how well they hold up to repeated viewings. I bet if I watched Rear Window every night for a month, I’d see something new every time and would never be bored by the experience. Of course that’s one of my all-time favorite films, but the same principle holds to the ones I don’t like so much, such as Notorious.
I’m aware a lot of people think Notorious is one of Hitchcock’s best films, which is one reason I keep giving it another chance. And sure enough, every rewatch brings me new appreciation of some aspect of this film, even if on the whole it isn’t close to becoming a favorite. The plot is trying too hard to be topical, there’s a lot of casual misogyny on display, much of the acting feels exaggerated (odd considering the stellar cast involved), and I don’t buy the central romance for one minute. And yet even with those criticisms there’s so much to enjoy about this film that it’s worth returning to again and again.
The plot of Notorious (screenplay by Ben Hecht) involves an attempt by the American Secret Service to infiltrate a Nazi ring of uranium smugglers in Brazil. Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), daughter of a convicted Nazi spy, is recruited to get inside the gang by seducing one of its members, Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains). She’s motivated to join the effort because she’s on the record as being disgusted by her father’s actions and is considered a good candidate for the job because the head of the operation (Louis Calhern) views her as a useful but disposable floozy (needless to say, the job involves great personal danger on her part). Agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) is Alicia’s primary contact on the job, a situation that results in them falling in love, but both resolve to set their feelings aside for the greater good and carry on with the mission as planned.
Rains’ fellow Nazis, including Dr. Anderson (Reinhold Schünzel), Eric Mathis (Ivan Triesault), and Emil Hupka (Eberhard Krumschmidt),are a delightfully creepy cast of characters who can shift from Old World charm to pure menace on a dime. The scariest of them all is Alex’s mother Madame Anna Sebastian (Madame Konstantin), who is clearly the brains of the operation (and I do love a self-possessed old lady, even if she’s batting for the wrong side). Alex, on the other hand, seems to be in a state of arrested development but maybe we should cut him some slack since he’s thinks he’s won the heart of a woman who looks just like Ingrid Bergman and that could turn anyone’s head.
Notorious is a technical marvel, as is the case for many of Hitchcock’s films, but the special effects are the kind meant to remain hidden rather than call attention to themselves (the latter is the sort that wins awards). Most of the film was shot in California, for instance, then cut together seamlessly with second-unit exteriors shot in Miami and Rio de Janeiro. You may detect some of the rear projection shots but it’s unlikely contemporary audiences would have been bothered by them. Claude Rains was about 4 inches shorter than Ingrid Bergman, and even elevator shoes (which he wore) couldn’t make that up, so Hitchcock created a series of ramps to make Rains look taller when walking alongside Bergman.
Another reason Notorious bears rewatching are the banger scenes. There’s the famous balcony kissing scene, for instance, in which Hitchcock evaded censorship rules by having each kiss last no longer than three seconds but making the whole two minutes seem like one continuous kiss of what is basically extended foreplay. The ballroom/wine cellar scene is rightly cited for suspense, visual storytelling, and the masterful use of a crane shot (note to young directors: if you’re going to use an attention-getting technique, this is what it means to make it worthwhile). Also special kudos to Ingrid Bergman for managing to conceal a significant item without the benefit of pockets. The final scenes not only tie together everything that has come before, they also mirror the film’s opening scenes and provide a showcase for some of Hitchcock’s signature mid-career techniques.
My favorite scene is much less technically elaborate, however, and is carried by the acting talents of Madam Konstantin and Claude Rains and the scriptwriting of Ben Hecht. When Alex tells his mother he has screwed up, her response is chilling yet entirely apt: “We are protected by the enormity of your stupidity.” All the while, she’s smoking a cigarette in a way that exudes pure menace bound up by iron self-control while Rains seems to shrink down to a little boy being shamed for tracking dirt on the carpet. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 137
Technical details: 101 min.; B&W; screen ratio 1.37:1; English.
Edition reviewed: DVD (2 discs)
Extras: audio commentaries by film scholar Marian Keane and film historian Rudy Behlmer; French TV documentary “Once Upon a Time…Notorious”; David Bordwell’s analysis of the film’s final scene; interview with cinematographer John Bailey discussing the visual style of Notorious; interview with Hitchcock scholar Donald Spoto; documentary exploring Hitchcock’s preproduction process; 1948 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Notorious; newsreel footage of a 1948 interview of Ingrid Bergman by Alfred Hitchcock; four trailers for Notorious; booklet featuring an essay by Angelica Jane Bastien.
Fun Fact: David O’ Selznick wanted to replace Cary Grant with Joseph Cotton, both because he would be cheaper and because he was immediately available (Selznick thought it was important to be the first studio to bring a film about the atom bomb, since the U.S. had recently dropped two on Japan).
Parting Thought: The more I think about Madame Sebastian’s reading of her son, the more I think she’s right, and not just about him. Can you think of any contemporary applications of this principle?
