THE FILM:
Notorious, released August 15, 1946.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains.
PETER BOGDANOVICH SAYS:
"For an absolutely unique, no-apologies. no-excuses, first-rate picture, Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 suspense success, NOTORIOUS, is the one. It is a more-modern-than-ever. ambiguous and troubling, love-versus-duty story of the early noir era: a convicted Nazi's innocent daughter (Ingrid Bergman at her most striking), wholly in love with an American spy (Cary Grant) who's divded about her, is forced to marry a renegade Nazi (Claude Rains) who's truly mad about her."
"It is arguably Hitchcock's best film, with a brilliant script (nominated for an Academy Award) that he concocted with the ace Ben Hecht."
THE TRASH MAN SAYS:
Slow, sorta' dull.
I might have to mark these week's entry in the Challenge down as a failure. My familiarity with Hitchcock's work bends more to his later-era work; the darker (Rear Window, Strangers on a Train) and the far more depraved (Psycho, Frenzy). Oh, and The Birds (1963), of course. This one, well, this one I would argue with Bogdanovich is far from the best from The Master of Suspense.
I'm going to have to revisit it sooner rather than later, though. To give it a fair chance to redeem itself in the eyes of a sluggish Trash Man. Yeah, I had difficulty staying awake thanks to an early morning shift at work, which is maybe no fault of the film's. But with only a few hours left in the day, and the week-long window to watch and review the film, I don't have it in me to attempt a re-watch before the deadline's up.
Sorry, Hitch. I'll see you again in Week Fifteen, and hopefully then I'll be a lot less groggy.
Roger Ebert also put this one on his Greatest Movies of All Time list. I was surprised that not many of his more famous movies from the '50s like North by Northwest, Rear Window or Psycho made the cut.
ReplyDeleteI liked the beginning and the end, the slow reveal of Cary Grant and the climatic walk down the stairs has a good deal of punch behind it, but it is one of Hitchcock's slower offerings.