Notorious (1946)

Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Notorious’ follows Ingrid Bergman as ‘Alicia Huberman’, a young woman approached by the American government after her father is convicted of treason. When this film was released, Hitchcock had already been making films for almost twenty five years, however he was far from his peak.

This is not to say the film is without merit – far from, in fact. I found the characters and performances to be very entertaining throughout: Alicia Huberman is written as young, naïve and reckless to the point of alcoholism, and while this could be irritating or even weak, Bergman manages to bring out an independent, conflicted character who is definitely likeable enough for any audience member to root for her to succeed and sympathise in any moments of peril. In some senses, the character is ahead of her time, making her own decisions and risking her life while being presented as imperfect and strong-willed. On the other hand, she is recruited, given orders, married to, and rescued by (older) men. Still, her alcoholic nature and larger amount of screen time than her male co-stars makes her the clear star and comes off as progressive.

“Independent” is not completely true though, as Huberman throughout the film pines after Cary Grant’s ‘T.R. Devlin’, a very traditional, stern, quick-witted, not-emotional-until-the-end-of-the-end-of-the-film male protagonist of a film from the classic Hollywood era. Grant brings the classic spy intrigue and suave nature to Devlin as much as I assume he could, but there is not much to this character.

More charm is delivered by the film’s antagonist, ‘Alexander Sebastian’. Claude Rains brings a mix of charm, jealousy and villainy to the role. As the Nazi Alicia Huberman has to marry to retrieve information from, Sebastian is played as not completely evil, but still a creepy Nazi who lives with his creepy Nazi mum and takes orders from his cliché Nazi boss.

As well as the interesting characters and good performances mentioned, ‘Notorious’ contains some very interesting visuals and incredibly suspenseful scenes – this is Hitchcock, after all. Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny the glaring flaws in the film’s plot and pacing. I won’t even try to explain the narrative of ‘Notorious’ as I’m not 100% sure of it myself - but as soon as Huberman and Sebastian marry, “convoluted” and “bogged-down” would be understatements. This also contrasts greatly with the rushed opening and ending, leading to an all-over-the-place pacing that just leaves the film feeling uninteresting despite its many positives.

Overall, though there are many positives to ‘Notorious’, they end up feeling like wasted potential in a very slow film that has unfortunately not aged as well as some of Hitchcock’s other work.