Notorious (1946)

Subject: Notorious (1946) Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:27 pm

This film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, tells the story of a woman (Ingrid Bergman) whose father was a Nazi spy. She is hired by Cary Grant's character to go to Rio de Janeiro to spy on some Nazis who were friends with her father. The plot here is very slow at first and frankly it wasn't all that interesting. It kind of had a love story in there which was tolerable but not a whole lot happened save a reasonably dramatic scene at a party. The last half hour of the film picked up quite a bit and that saved the film. This film makes use of a MacGuffin, some uranium in this case, which is a hallmark of several Hitchcock films most notably in North By Northwest (the microfilm).

Starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, one would expect good acting. The two do a rather good job and their love affair seems believable. In a supporting role Claude Rains does a good job as well.

Overall, this is probably ever-so-slightly better than Spellbound but still just a mediocre effort. This film is generally regarded as one of Hitchcock's better films, probably one of his ten best, and I suppose that's reasonable. So far I would say this is worse than at least 8 other Hitchcock films I've seen but still watchable. Unfortunately this film, like Rebecca, Spellbound, and The Paradine Case is out of print (the first 3 were all released by Criterion) and a copy will run between $40-100+ depending on the condition.

72/100
C-

UP NEXT: Either Ben-Hur, Witness for the Prosecution, or something else while I'm at home for the weekend.
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