A review of the classic 1946 movie “Notorious”
The first film to be produced as well as directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this is striking for being both a taut espionage thriller and a moving romance. It has a wonderful cast, led by Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Raine in a triangular relationship in which each is both a spy and a lover. The film is black and white but the characterisations are far from it. The clever script was by Ben Hecht (who received an Academy Award nomination) and includes some sharp one-liners.
Set just after the Second World War, it was contemporary in depicting a German spy ring in Rio de Janeiro (although almost all the shooting was in studios) and featuring uranium (used in the the recent two atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese). This was the time of the restrictive Hays Code (1934-1968) and there is a wonderful scene in which Hitchcock overcomes the three-second limit on kissing with a clever series of cuts that enables a two-and-a-half-minute smooch.
As always with Hitchcock movies, there is some memorable cinematography and here one of the smartest sequences starts with a high and wide shot of a party in a mansion and then tracks down and in on a hand holding a key. The final shot of the film is neat and dramatic.