Alfred Hitchcock's Classic Thriller "Notorious" Is As Suspenseful, Fun and Romantic As Ever

 Patrick Versus Alfred Hitchcock

"Patrick Versus" is a format I pull out of the works every so often when there simply isn't enough time to write a full review. It relies more heavily on bullet points than actual critical analysis. I try to avoid it, but sometimes it can't be helped.

On this week's episode, Patrick takes on Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious.

Notorious is cut from the same cloth that all Hitchcock movies are made from: suspense. This makes old Hitch sound like a one trick pony, but the real genius was how much Hitchcock played around with how he was leaving us on the edge of our seats. Each Hitchcock film has the signature suspense and perfectly calculated buildup and pacing. But what sets them apart is that they all also have fairly intriguing individual narratives that hold up well even without the titillating thrills.

Take Notorious' story. Cary Grant plays spy H.R. Devlin who convinces a traitor's daughter Alicia Huberman, played by Ingrid Bergman, to help the U.S. government get information from exiled Nazis in Rio. My mouth is drooling from all the awesomeness inherent to that sentence. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman playing opposite eachother! Spies! Nazis! Alfred Hitchcock! It's recipe for a fun time, and the recipe works stupendously my dear chap.

Devlin and Alicia fall madly in love, as they do. But their plans for a passionate love affair is cut short when the assignment turns out be that Alicia needs to seduce the Nazi general Alexander Sebastian, played unsurprisingly wonderfully by Claude Rains. This becomes ever more complicated when Sebastian proposes to Alicia. Is this the end for these two and their all-consuming chemistry?! Can they stop the Nazis' plotting and canoodle?

Stray Thoughts:
-"Suspense! Romance! Nazis!" I yelled that a lot at the screen (because I'm strange like that). And it's really the three things driving the story. In fact, what's most surprising is how large the romance looms in this narrative. The real big story here is the game of romantic chicken Grant and Bergman's characters play with one another.
-MacGuffin of the Week: The uranium powder. In wine bottles no less!
-For a film with a Nazi villain, this movie seems to have really little interest in anything related to Nazis, as none of the typical Nazi mythos is ever mentioned.
-The real genius of Hitchcock is how assured he tells his stories. Not much seems to be happening early in the going, but then it picks up speed and before you know it all the pieces fall together and his films become some of the most intense films that you will ever watch.
-That ending is a bit open ended, but, hey, no one died! So lets all be thankful that the poisoned coffee (or was that tea?) didn't kill our favorite German-American.
-That mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) was one amusingly crazy person. I could have done with more of her.
-More intense the end scene or the party scene? The ending struck me as somewhat anticlimactic so I'm inclined to lean towards the party scene.
-Drunk Ingrid Bergman is better than drunk anything else? Yes?
-I love that the first time we see Cary Grant, the film tries to hide his identity as if it's unclear who it is. It seems sort of unnecessary, especially since he's introduced in the very next scene.   
-Great shots: the glimpse into the courtroom, the poisoned drink sitting in the foreground of the shot, walking down the stairs in the end scene, Alicia stealing the key.
-For a film set in Brazil, this film seemed to hardly even take notice of the fact. We do get some "Brazillian music" at the party, but I got the sense it was probably not actually Brazillian music but what Americans must imagine Brazilian music is.
-Claude Rains is so good that you almost sympathize with his character at times.
-There's just no way I can properly do justice to how good of a director Hitchcock is. He puts so many other directors to shame because he just gets it. He makes it all seem so effortless.
-There's some underlying subtext that amounts to "America! Fuck Yea!" It's not enough to be distracting but it feels slightly out of place. 

Consensus: Notorious is a thrilling, fun film with taut direction by Alfred Hitchcock and great performances from Grant, Bergman, and Rains

Grade: A