Notorious [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Overview

"Though Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious was produced by David O. Selznick's Vanguard Films, Selznick himself had little to do with the production, which undoubtedly pleased the highly independent Hitchcock. Ingrid Bergman plays Alicia Huberman, who goes to hell in a handbasket after her father, an accused WWII traitor, commits suicide. American secret agent Devlin (Cary Grant) is ordered to enlist the libidinous Alicia's aid in trapping Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), the head of a Brazilian neo-Nazi group. Openly contemptuous of Alicia despite her loyalty to the American cause, Devlin calmly instructs her to woo and wed Sebastian, so that that good guys will have an ""inside woman"" to monitor the Nazi chieftain's activities. It is only after Alicia and Sebastian are married that Devlin admits to himself that he's fallen in love with her. The ""MacGuffin"" in this case is a cache of uranium ore, hidden somewhere on Sebastian's estate. Upon discovering that his wife is a spy, Sebastian balks at eliminating her until ordered to do so by his virago of a mother (Madame Konstantin). Tension mounts to a fever pitch as Devlin, a day late and several dollars short, strives to rescue Alicia from Sebastian's homicidal designs. Of the several standout sequences, the film's highlight is an extended love scene between Alicia and Devlin, which manages to ignite the screen while still remaining scrupulously within the edicts of the Production Code. In later years, Hitchcock never tired of relating the story of how he and screenwriter Ben Hecht (who was nominated for an Oscar) fell under the scrutiny of the FBI after electing to use uranium as a plot device -- this before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A huge moneymaker for everyone concerned, Notorious is considered one of Hitchcock's best espionage melodramas. In 1992, Notorious was remade for cable television."

Product Details

Release Date:	01/15/2019
UPC:	0715515224512
Original Release:	1946
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:41:00

Special Features

Audio Commentaries from 1990 and 2001 featuring film historian Rudy Behlmer and Alfred Hitchcock scholar Marian Keane; New interview with Hitchcock biographer Donald Spoto ; New program about the film's visual style with Cinematographer John Bailey; New scene analysis by film scholar David Bordwell; Once Upon a Time... "Notorious," a 2009 documentary about the film featuring actor Isabella Rossellini; filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich, Claude Chabrol, and Stephen Frearsl and others; New program about Hitchcock's storyboarding and previosualization process by filmmaker Daniel Raim; Newsreel footage from 1948 of actor Ingrid Bergman and Hitchcock; Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Notorious from 1948, starring Bergman and Joseph Cotten; Trailers and teasers; Plus: An essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastien

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Cary Grant	Devlin
Ingrid Bergman	Alicia Huberman
Claude Rains	Alex
Louis Calhern	Prescott
Moroni Olsen	Beardsley
Ivan Triesault	Eric
Leopoldine Konstantin	Mme. Sebastian,Mme. Sebastian
Alexis Minotis	Joseph,Actor
Wally Brown	Hopkins,Judge
Gavin Gordon	Ernest Weylin,Adams
Charles Mendel	Commodore
Ricardo Costa	Dr. Barbosa
Fay Baker	Ethel
Eberhard Krumschmidt	Hupka,Hupka
Antonio Moreno	Senor Ortiza
Frederick Ledebur	Knerr
Luis Serrano	Dr. Silva
Ramon Nomar	Dr. Silva
Peter von Zerneck	Rossner
Fred Nurney	Huberman
Herbert Wyndham	Mr. Cook
Aileen Carlyle	Woman at Party
Harry Hayden	Defense Counsel
Dink Trout	Clerk at Court
Howard Negley	Photographer
Frank Marlowe	Photographer
George Lynn	Photographer
Warren Jackson	District Attorney
Howard Mitchell	Bailiff
Sandra Morgan	Woman
Lillian West	Woman
Beulah Christian	Woman
Leota Lorraine	Woman
Almeda Fowler	Woman
Garry Owen	Motor Cop
Lester Dorr	Motor Cop
Patricia Smart	Mrs. Jackson
Tina Menard	Maid
Richard Clark	Man
Francis McDonald	Man
Frank Wilcox	FBI Man
John Vosper	Reporter
Eddie Bruce	Reporter
Donald Kerr	Reporter
Ben Erway	Reporter
Emmett Vogan	Reporter
Paul Bryar	Reporter
Alan Ward	Reporter
James Logan	Reporter
Bea Benaderet	File Clerk
Virginia Gregg	File Clerk
Bernice Barrett	File Clerk
Ted Kelly	Waiter
Reinhold Schünzel	Dr. Anderson
Bess Flowers	Actor
Charles Mendl	Commodore
Candido Bonsato	Waiter
Richard Clarke	Man
Alfredo DeSa	Ribero
Tom Coleman	Court Stenographer
Reinhold Schunzel	Actor
Roy Webb	Composer

Technical Credits

Alfred Hitchcock

Ben Hecht

John Taintor Foote

Clifford Odets

Alfred Hitchcock	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Ben Hecht	Screenwriter
Paul Eagler	Special Effects
Vernon L. Walker	Special Effects,Special Effects
John Taintor Foote	Screenwriter
Clifford Odets	Screenwriter
Chris Crowell	Special Effects
Terry Kellum	Sound Effects
John E. Tribby	Sound Effects
Clem Portman	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Terry Kellum	Sound/Sound Designer
John E. Tribby	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

One of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest films, Notorious features the director at his devilishly elegant, self-assured best. A visual masterpiece, it plays like a seamlessly assembled jigsaw puzzle, in which each piece fits together with clean precision. The film's smooth veneer largely creates its visceral impact: lurking beneath the gloss are dealings of the most grotesque sort, their execution made all the more insidious by their sophisticated guise. Aside from containing one of Hitchcock's most famous MacGuffins, the uranium ore, Notorious boasts some of his most famous camerawork, most notably the gorgeous tracking shot during Sebastian's party that takes the viewer from the top of a staircase to Alicia's hand, clenched around the key that will lead her to the uranium ore. The camera moves with the quiet intimacy of an unobserved party guest, almost serpentine in its journey. Similarly ingenious is Hitchcock's use of point-of-view shots, particularly that of Alicia's waking up with a hangover and watching Devlin walk towards her as the camera spins 180 degrees. Seeing through Alicia's eyes, the audience sympathizes with her, making the character one of Hitchcock's most full-blooded and enduring heroines. It goes without saying that the success of Alicia's characterization is in no small part due to Ingrid Bergman's performance: tragic, lovelorn, and marked by logical cynicism, her portrayal of Alicia was one of the best of Bergman's career. She was ably supported by Cary Grant and Claude Rains, the former going against his likeable, effortlessly charismatic persona to play an initially charmless man with morals as questionable as the heroine's are supposed to be. Rains, paired with Bergman again after Casablanca, makes Sebastian into one of the film's more sympathetic characters; it is a mark of Rains' ability that when Sebastian turns to climb the stairs in the film's closing scene, we feel real terror for him. That Sebastian's fate is the result of both his own manipulations of others and his heart's manipulations of himself is at the center of the film's true MacGuffin: masquerading as a Cold War thriller, Notorious is one of the screen's classic black romances. Rebecca Flint