I've seen this about 4 times and I return to it occasionally hoping to see the merit people find in it. I never do.
You can see that this movie would have been useful in establishing Hitchcock, but that moment is quite over. He surpassed it (technically and artistically) quickly after with his own work. It's value is only in context. It's not good Hitchcock by my standard. It has one daring idea for the time; that a tramp may show greater nobility and heroism than the off-screen prim and proper 1950's housewife that is mentioned; and one interesting performance; a German mother more threatening than the harmless, effete villain.
Unfortunately Hitch is more interested in the technical aspects of Notorious, and then only in places, making it a weird, lopsided production. It's chilly, and many scenes are crappy genre clichés. It's technically "on" but emotionally off. I never feel a thing watching this. It's an academic exercise.
If the apparent level of a movie is so disappointing, why would a viewer be interested in learning more about its symbolic or semiotic level? Which, by the way none of these reviews even touch.
TECHNIQUE: All the major scenes are showy but hollow.
The classic camera shot zooming in from an overhead full-room shot to Alicia's hand holding a key embodies the problems here. It's pointless. The plot has set up the moment. We've SEEN her steal the key, and we know she's handing it off to Devlin at the party. The shot is vapid because it adds nothing but conspicuous technique to the moment. The shot is pivotal but it changes nothing. After it we know exactly what we knew before; that's not mature Hitchcock. What does it mean when he makes such a laborious, self-conscious shot, but the rest of the movie is so hideously fake? The rear-screen projections are fatal here: whether it's a park bench, a courthouse, a café, or all of Rio, the movie is about one yard deep. I can't believe people love a movie with such phony methods of getting imagery into a camera.
Worst of all is the convention of the actors betraying necessarily clandestine reactions on their faces for the benefit of the audience; looks that would give them away over and over again. The acting here is all about making faces. Forget body language or something subtler.
Cary Grant plays a petulant, vindictive ass. It's a miracle we won the war with unprofessional jackasses like this working for us. After one drunk date he's a snotty lover? I have now seen all the Grant/Hitchcock movies (after seeing Suspicion yesterday) and I dislike each one for different reasons.
HOLES: Over and over again Hitchcock chooses the dumb & cinematic over internal logic or common sense. It's as if he assumes the audience left their brains at home.
Why such tension developed over handing off the key to Devlin upstairs at the party, when Alicia arranges to be at the wine cellar door WITH HIM when he opens it? This is the films major setpiece and it makes absolutely no sense.
Why is neither Devlin or Alicia concerned with devising a way to get the key back on Sebastians ring? Because Hitch needs that tension-building wine cellar sequence more than he cares to fit it convincingly into a romance or a spy plot. Why can't Devlin piece her fate together, after say ten seconds of thought, where he realizes neither he nor she gave a damn about being detected after the fact? Because he's the worst agent ever scripted in a Hollywood movie. This isn't rocket science.
Devlin and Alicia meet 4 or 5 times in public to hand information off. They meet at a racetrack, or on a park bench talking out the sides of their mouths, so as to avoid discovery. But what would anyone need to 'discover' about their conversation if they were seen together? Just being seen together would betray them. Sebastian knows Devlin is an agent from the start and has figured out that the two are in love. What's the point of sitting an extra foot apart on a bench pretending to have idle chatter? Two people in their situation would never choose to meet in public.
When I read fawning reviews of this movie, it makes me sorry Hitchcock used such constant motifs across his career; because shallow fans can watch engaging nothing but a checklist of elements: *the directors appearance, *a technical trick, *a stairway, *a camera gimmick, *a domineering mother, *a character falling to their death, *an icy blonde, etc. They can't wait to declare it a masterpiece and congratulate themselves. But they couldn't tell you why this is important or discuss it's ideas for ten seconds because they lack any criteria that would tell them when those elements construct a shallow movie. In Hitchcock's great movies that checklist is supported by convincing psychology, a bit of humor and satisfying depth that yields layers of meaning. Not so here.
You can see that this movie would have been useful in establishing Hitchcock, but that moment is quite over. He surpassed it (technically and artistically) quickly after with his own work. It's value is only in context. It's not good Hitchcock by my standard. It has one daring idea for the time; that a tramp may show greater nobility and heroism than the off-screen prim and proper 1950's housewife that is mentioned; and one interesting performance; a German mother more threatening than the harmless, effete villain.
Unfortunately Hitch is more interested in the technical aspects of Notorious, and then only in places, making it a weird, lopsided production. It's chilly, and many scenes are crappy genre clichés. It's technically "on" but emotionally off. I never feel a thing watching this. It's an academic exercise.
If the apparent level of a movie is so disappointing, why would a viewer be interested in learning more about its symbolic or semiotic level? Which, by the way none of these reviews even touch.
TECHNIQUE: All the major scenes are showy but hollow.
The classic camera shot zooming in from an overhead full-room shot to Alicia's hand holding a key embodies the problems here. It's pointless. The plot has set up the moment. We've SEEN her steal the key, and we know she's handing it off to Devlin at the party. The shot is vapid because it adds nothing but conspicuous technique to the moment. The shot is pivotal but it changes nothing. After it we know exactly what we knew before; that's not mature Hitchcock. What does it mean when he makes such a laborious, self-conscious shot, but the rest of the movie is so hideously fake? The rear-screen projections are fatal here: whether it's a park bench, a courthouse, a café, or all of Rio, the movie is about one yard deep. I can't believe people love a movie with such phony methods of getting imagery into a camera.
Worst of all is the convention of the actors betraying necessarily clandestine reactions on their faces for the benefit of the audience; looks that would give them away over and over again. The acting here is all about making faces. Forget body language or something subtler.
Cary Grant plays a petulant, vindictive ass. It's a miracle we won the war with unprofessional jackasses like this working for us. After one drunk date he's a snotty lover? I have now seen all the Grant/Hitchcock movies (after seeing Suspicion yesterday) and I dislike each one for different reasons.
HOLES: Over and over again Hitchcock chooses the dumb & cinematic over internal logic or common sense. It's as if he assumes the audience left their brains at home.
Why such tension developed over handing off the key to Devlin upstairs at the party, when Alicia arranges to be at the wine cellar door WITH HIM when he opens it? This is the films major setpiece and it makes absolutely no sense.
Why is neither Devlin or Alicia concerned with devising a way to get the key back on Sebastians ring? Because Hitch needs that tension-building wine cellar sequence more than he cares to fit it convincingly into a romance or a spy plot. Why can't Devlin piece her fate together, after say ten seconds of thought, where he realizes neither he nor she gave a damn about being detected after the fact? Because he's the worst agent ever scripted in a Hollywood movie. This isn't rocket science.
Devlin and Alicia meet 4 or 5 times in public to hand information off. They meet at a racetrack, or on a park bench talking out the sides of their mouths, so as to avoid discovery. But what would anyone need to 'discover' about their conversation if they were seen together? Just being seen together would betray them. Sebastian knows Devlin is an agent from the start and has figured out that the two are in love. What's the point of sitting an extra foot apart on a bench pretending to have idle chatter? Two people in their situation would never choose to meet in public.
When I read fawning reviews of this movie, it makes me sorry Hitchcock used such constant motifs across his career; because shallow fans can watch engaging nothing but a checklist of elements: *the directors appearance, *a technical trick, *a stairway, *a camera gimmick, *a domineering mother, *a character falling to their death, *an icy blonde, etc. They can't wait to declare it a masterpiece and congratulate themselves. But they couldn't tell you why this is important or discuss it's ideas for ten seconds because they lack any criteria that would tell them when those elements construct a shallow movie. In Hitchcock's great movies that checklist is supported by convincing psychology, a bit of humor and satisfying depth that yields layers of meaning. Not so here.