You can add Sabastians name to my list of playmates.
A review by Mike Shea Movie Rating: ( * * * * * ) DVD Rating: ( * * * · · )
Alicia and Devlin share a quiet moment at an outdoor cafe in Brazil. The steel eyes of Devlin (Cary Grant) never leave his recruit (Ingrid Bergman), "most definitely not a lady" she is later referred to. Is he contemplating whether or not this lush may be able to succeed to infiltrate the remains of a third riche science team or is his mind wrapped around our heroine like his handkerchief was wrapped around her perfect waste that cold evening in Washington.
In 1946 Alfred Hitchcock created the greatest spy movie ever made. Using a perfect blend of writing, dialog, and acting to its fullest potential, he creates suspense out of a cup of coffee, fear from a broken bottle of dirt, and love out of a handkerchief. There is no better example to show how fucked up Hollywood is these days than looking back 60 years and seeing what it was able to do back then. Hitchcock loved to limit himself. In Rope, he tells a murder story with one cut and two rooms. Notorious tells a spy story with no gun and no body. It could be rated G except the subject matter is quite a bit more powerful than Snow Dogs.
There is a great irony in seeing the plotline of Notorious wrapped around John Woo's Mission Impossible 2. Even down to the meeting at the horse race and the palming of a key. The greatest difference is that the magic of storytelling is lost when a million dollars of computer effects are used to tear Tom Cruise's face off of some european terrorist. MI2 wasn't too bad a movie, but to steal the plot from a movie as perfect as a zen circle and then ruin it with bad acting and over-done gun fights is appalling. The conclusion of Notorious is a perfect example of a wonderful ending without a gunfight. No one needs to die to tie this picture together. The silhouettes of two men at a doorway and one on a dusty driveway is enough.
The DVD of Notorious can hardly be reviewed. The movie was released in 1946. To re-mat the picture to a 16x9 screen or attempt to add multi-channel sound would be as bad as Ted Turner adding color to It's a Wonderful Life. Having multiple commentary tracks with Hitchcock historians would have been an excellent bonus, but it cannot be expected. Playing back a 4x3 movie on a 16x9 screen is frustrating but for a movie such as this, there is no other way.
Our hero and heroine meet again at a park. He looks at her with jealousy and tenderness. He loves her for her patriotism and hates her for her actions in it's name. She looks bad, probably on the booze again. Frustrated at his own mix of emotions he lashes out with words that cut to the bone. She reaches into her purse and draws out his handkerchief. "You can have this back."
I have no other way to describe it. I am in love with this movie.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You are free to copy, distribute, display, and make derivative works under the conditions that you give the original author credit and you not use this work for commercial purposes.