Notorious
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Notorious was a 1946 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Bergman plays Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a Nazi spy. She is hired by the U.S. government to spy on a group of Germans who have relocated to Brazil after World War II.
Grant plays T. R. Devlin, the American agent she works for. Rains plays Alex Sebastian, the German spy.
The picture fell under scrutiny at the time of its release for a long embrace between Bergman and Grant. Censorship of the period limited the amount of time a couple on screen could kiss, and Hitchcock circumvented this restriction by having his lovers maintain close physical contact while moving across the room making dinner plans. Such extended close-ups of lovers became a Hitchcock trademark. Similar examples occur in Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and North by Northwest.
Critics have noted a "beverage motif" that runs throughout the picture: at the beginning of the film, Alicia is portrayed as a dipsomaniac and bottles and glasses are prominent in many scenes; later, Alicia and Devlin discover the uranium (the film's MacGuffin) in wine bottles in Sebastian's cellar; finally, Sebastian and his mother attempt to kill Alicia by poisoning her coffee.
Interestingly, Hitchcock and screenwriter Ben Hecht chose to use uranium as their central plot device before the use of nuclear weapons in Japan. Hitchcock later alleged that he was under FBI surveillance because of this.
Awards and nominations
- Best Supporting Actor (nomination) - Claude Rains