Notorious

UPC: 883904252498

Studio: Fox Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Mild Violence, Adult Situations, Suitable for Children]

Summary: 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 remains one of Hitchcock's best espionage melodramas. In 1992, Notorious was remade for cable television; it goes without saying that the original is vastly superior. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Spy Film

Awards: Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Supporting Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 10 Best Films – New York Times 10 Best Films – Film Daily

Features: Commentary with film Professor Rick Jewell
Commentary with film Professor Dick Casper
Isolated music and effects treck
The ultimate romance: the making of Notorious
Alfred Hitchcock: the ultimate spymaster
The American Film Institute award: the key to Hitchcock
1948 radio play starring Joseph Cotten and Ingrid Bergman
Hitchock audio interviews
Restoration comparison
Original theatrical trailer

Notorious

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 01/24/2012

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: DHMA null

Runtime: 102 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Region: Blu-ray region A (North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia)

Rebecca Flint Marx

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 toward 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 Marx, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Francis McDonald  Actor 
Garry Owen  Actor 
Frank Wilcox  Actor 
Sandra Morgan  Actor 
Eddie Bruce  Actor 
Almeda Fowler  Actor 
Leota Lorraine  Actor 
Fred Nurney  Actor 
John Vosper  Actor 
Warren Jackson  Actor 
Bea Benaderet  Actor 
Harry Hayden  Actor 
Beulah Christian  Actor 
Charles D. Brown  Actor 
Lester Dorr  Actor 
Howard Mitchell  Actor 
Emmett Vogan  Actor 
Frederick Ledebur  Actor 
Alfredo De Sa  Actor 
Donald Kerr  Actor 
Dink Trout  Actor 
Howard Negley  Actor 
Herbert Wyndham  Actor 
Aileen Carlyle  Actor 
Virginia Gregg  Actor 
Frank Marlowe  Actor 
Richard Clark  Actor 
Alan Ward  Actor 
Ben Erway  Actor 
James Logan  Actor 
Antonio Moreno  Actor 
Peter Von Zerneck  Actor 
Tom Coleman  Actor 
Paul Bryar  Actor 
Gavin Gordon  Actor 
George Lynn  Actor 
Lillian West  Actor 
Tina Menard  Actor 
Ben Hecht  Screenwriter 
Alfred Hitchcock  Director 
Alfred Hitchcock  Producer 
Roy Webb  Composer (Music Score) 
Cary Grant  Actor 
Ingrid Bergman  Actor 
Claude Rains  Actor 
Louis Calhern  Actor 
Leopoldine Konstantin  Actor 
Moroni Olsen  Actor 
Reinhold Schünzel  Actor 
Ivan Triesault  Actor 
Alexis Minotis  Actor 
Wally Brown  Actor 
Charles Mendl  Actor 
Ricardo Costa  Actor 
Eberhard Krumschmidt  Actor 
Fay Baker  Actor 

Country: USA