FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Alfred Hitchcock - Notorious 

Of all the Hitchcock films, Notorious is the most impressive in terms of visual ideas! Everything here serves only one purpose: to illustrate the secret obsessions of a chubby British gentleman. And with what images! Not just some of the best Hitchcocks, but some of the best ever - and they all lead us to the grandiose finale, where two men find out how wrong they both were. For Swedish Ingrid Bergman, Notorious was one of the two films that would make her immortal. She plays a woman whose tainted reputation (she is "notorious"!) earns her the reputation of working for the US secret service as an informant. In Rio she is supposed to spy on one of the top Nazis. But the man who hires and loves her starts to doubt her, which puts her in grave danger. A man who does not understand the woman he loves - and this misunderstanding is at the center of Notorious. The film was made in 1946, shortly before the cold war began. If Hitchcock had filmed Notorious only a few months later, communists would probably have been the villains. But the script was written by Ben Hecht, who was more interested in following the trail of Nazi criminals in South America. If you want to get to grips with German history, you should try to find the old dubbing. There are no Nazis in the old dubbing, but a ring of smugglers. Bergman plays Alicia Huberman, whose father cooperated with the Nazis. Maybe that's why she is an alcoholic and something like an IT girl? Anyway, she is known to be drunk and sexually open. That's why CIA Agent Devlin (Cary Grant) approaches her. Alicia is supposed to expose a Nazi spy ring around Sebastian (ironically played by the Frenchman Claude Rains) in Rio. Sebastian, a friend of Alicia's father, once loved her and probably still does. Devlin explicitly asks Alicia to share a bed with the Nazi colonel in order to obtain information. He appeals to the good American citizen who is hiding behind the party girl. Alicia agrees to marry Sebastian, because at that moment she is already in love with Devlin. The sexual arrangements are of course only indirectly presented in the dialogues. Hitchcock fulfills the production code - but there is no doubt that a sexual deal is made here. It is interesting that Sebastian seems more likeable to us than Devlin. He may be a Nazi spy, but he sincerely loves Alicia. Devlin, on the other hand, only seems to use her and drives her into the arms of another. Hitchcock is known for his visual sophistication. He made storyboards of every scene. At the same time he cunningly undermines the image of Cary Grant's "good boy". Take a look at the scene where Alicia gets drunk at a party the night after her father is convicted. She drinks to forget. She has her camera watching the event - just like Devlin. Hitchcock installed it behind Cary Grant so that we only see the back of his head. The camera moves left and right while Alicia drinks and flirts. The next morning, Alicia wakes up with an outright hangover. In front of her is a glass with a painkiller (which will soon be combined with a cup of coffee, which in turn contains arsenic). Devrin enters the room, Alicia sees him upside down. Can she trust this man? Can we? Devlin confronts Alicia with a tape recording that proves she is a patriot. Her gaze changes - in the end we see Bergman bathed in brilliant light. It doesn't take words to discern her development. Devlin and Sebastian - the script by Ben Hecht skillfully plays these two men off against each other. Sebastian is smaller, more elegant and more vulnerable. He is dominated by his mother. Devlin is more imposing and sometimes rough. Both men love Alicia, but the wrong man trusts her. Everything culminates in the moment when Devlin leads Alicia out of Sebastian's estate - in front of all the Nazis, but circumstances allow him to do so, so no one can stop him. Devlin leads Alicia down the stairs, out into the open. In an earlier scene we see her descending these stairs, but this time it seems endless. Suspense! Throughout his career, Hitchcock exposed women to great danger in such scenes. Usually they were blond and manipulated by men. The master of manipulation behind it all was Hitchcock himself! The casting of Ingrid Bergman in Notorious was ideal for this role: she embodies the noble, but also the sensual. She sleeps with Sebastian because she loves Devlin - who in turn has a problem with her carrying out his own "mission". So many films end in boring shootings or car chases. Those who are tired of this can enjoy the finale of Notorious on the endless stairs of Sebastian's villa. Alicia and Devlin escape and one of the Nazis asks Sebastian: "Alex, will you come in, please? - We know; he will never come out again.