Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Writer: Ben Hecht
Cast: Cary Grant. Ingrid Bergman. Claude Rains.
Alfred Hitchcock was often referred to as the Master of Suspense. He was a supreme Auteur, the man whose personal stamp on the human condition was visible in every frame, scene 
and dialogue in his works. Every frame in his films was crafted to show some aspect of human behaviour.”We have become a race of peeping toms. We should go out and look at ourselves.” Nurse Thelma Ritter tells her patient Jimmy Stewart, but is it a line for the character or the audience now entranced by movies? Many such lines and vignettes from his films show a light on humans and humanity.
Of the 58 films he made over 50 years, 11 were superb spy films, though they were marketed as “suspense thrillers”. These films looked at spies and spying, while the morality of the “spy game:” was in the background and not explicitly in your face.
Notorious is one such film that examines the spying game and its consequences for the humans involved. The story looks like a romance gone wrong, but every aspect of the spying game is evident from the first reel.
Alicia Huberman’s (Ingrid Bergman) father has been jailed as a Nazi spy. The shame makes 
her run wild and turn suicidal. Wild parties and drunken excesses follow, during which she meets a handsome but cold man, Devlin (Cary Grant). Soon, he reveals his identity as an FBI agent. He offers her a chance to regain her name – by turning informer and infiltrating her father’s Nazi gang in Rio de Janeiro. She is supposed to meet the top Nazi, Sebastian (Claude Rains), in South America and be part of his spy ring. Alicia agrees on one condition: Devlin will be her controller and guide her through the process. Devlin agrees, and soon, the duo is in Rio, where she establishes contact with Sebastian, who is smitten by her and proposes marriage. Devlin is happy at this turn of events as it gets Alicia closer to the ring. A disappointed Alicia marries Sebastian and soon discovers what Sebastian is up to. Meanwhile, Sebastian has also found that Alicia is a spy and has plans to deal with it.
From a spy-game angle, the film is simply superb. As with any agent infiltrating a ring, the Achilles Heel is how to get the information out safely to the controllers. Alicia, too, has the information, but she is caught between her conscience, her patriotism and Devlin’s coldness, not to speak of betraying Sebastian. Devlin’s aloof nature causes her more heartburn than Sebastian’s charm, as the latter is enamoured of her. And always in the background, there is the need to redeem herself, which Devlin exploits. For her, he is just a source. A means to an end. None of this is explicitly mentioned. The events unfold in front of us.
This is simply superb writing and filmmaking. The pacing may be a bit laid back, but slowly, the tension builds up, and we keep wondering whether Devlin will see Alicia for who she is or just a source to be exploited.
Cary Grant is superb as the cold, aloof Devlin, for whom Alicia is just an agent to be controlled and manipulated. Ingrid Bergman’s luminous beauty conceals her magnificent performance as the woman torn between her man, her duty, and her inner self. Claude Rains is a suave superb villain as the somewhat charming but ultimately sinister Nazi.
Trivia: South America was a playground for both Allied and Nazi spies, with the latter trying to recruit sympathetic “agents” and the former trying to prevent such recruitments. No wonder South America became a haven for nazis who fled there after the end of the Second World War.(Photo of Devlin and Alicia at “Rio” – just a standard back projection)
The FBI also supposedly questioned Hitchcock about the source of his information on the “Uranium bottles” used in the movie as the “Atom Bomb process” was still a secret!
The film is available on YouTube as below.
Script – 5 out of 5
Story – 5 out of 5
Direction – 5 out of 5
Photography – 4 out of 5
Total – 4.8 out of 5
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