Notorious Intro
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Introduction:
Tonight’s feature is Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious, from 1946, starring Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman. Notorious was a timely film that dealt with Nazi’s who escaped to South America & their efforts to continue the war effort from abroad. Hitchcock had come to America in 1940 at the behest of producer David O. Selznick who had produced Gone With the Wind the prior year. When he left England he was the most celebrated director in the country, but was concerned with the effect the war would have on filmmaking & looked to America for career security & the safety of his family. Notorious was the 9th film he made during his first 6 years in the US & his first, Rebecca, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the only Hitchcock directed film to win that award. In addition to his Best Director nomination for Rebecca, he was also nominated for Lifeboat in 1944 & Spellbound in 1945. It was on Spellbound that Hitchcock first worked with & became infatuated with Ingrid Bergman. He would often tell the story of how Bergman once refused to leave his bedroom until he made love to her, which is almost assuredly false, but his infatuation caused years of stress on Hitch’s relationship with wife Alma.
Notorious was packaged by Selznick to RKO Studios for the sum of $800,000, which included writer Ben Hecht, director Hitchcock & star Bergman. Even with Selznick’s monstrous success with Gone With the Wind, he needed the cash to finance a vanity project, Duel in the Sun, that starred his mistress & future wife Jennifer Jones. Hitchcock & Hecht had collaborated on Spellbound & were happy to be out from under the thumb of the meddling Selznick. RKO, at the time, was a movie studio on the edge of being one of the majors, having released King Kong years earlier, most of the Bing Crosby/Ginger Rodgers musicals & some of the best Horror & Film noir of the 1940’s.
Hitchcock was already known at the Master of Suspense & his very specific style of filmmaking was already pretty established. Since his first job in films was as a set illustrator, he meticulously storyboarded every shot that appears in his films. He often said the actual physical process of making a film was dull & uninteresting, preferring the preparatory work on the script & storyboards to the technical & time-consuming work on set. He was famously mis-quoted as referring to actors as cattle, but he later explained what he meant was they were to be treated as cattle, ie ordered where to go & what to do. He notoriously would drink quite a bit at lunchtime & sometimes would sleep in his chair while various shots were being set up. While he had many disagreements with actors he got along very well with Ingrid Bergman & Cary Grant was often referred to as what Hitchcock imagined as his on-screen reflection.
Tonight’s feature is Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious, from 1946, starring Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman. Notorious was a timely film that dealt with Nazi’s who escaped to South America & their efforts to continue the war effort from abroad. Hitchcock had come to America in 1940 at the behest of producer David O. Selznick who had produced Gone With the Wind the prior year. When he left England he was the most celebrated director in the country, but was concerned with the effect the war would have on filmmaking & looked to America for career security & the safety of his family. Notorious was the 9th film he made during his first 6 years in the US & his first, Rebecca, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the only Hitchcock directed film to win that award. In addition to his Best Director nomination for Rebecca, he was also nominated for Lifeboat in 1944 & Spellbound in 1945. It was on Spellbound that Hitchcock first worked with & became infatuated with Ingrid Bergman. He would often tell the story of how Bergman once refused to leave his bedroom until he made love to her, which is almost assuredly false, but his infatuation caused years of stress on Hitch’s relationship with wife Alma.
Notorious was packaged by Selznick to RKO Studios for the sum of $800,000, which included writer Ben Hecht, director Hitchcock & star Bergman. Even with Selznick’s monstrous success with Gone With the Wind, he needed the cash to finance a vanity project, Duel in the Sun, that starred his mistress & future wife Jennifer Jones. Hitchcock & Hecht had collaborated on Spellbound & were happy to be out from under the thumb of the meddling Selznick. RKO, at the time, was a movie studio on the edge of being one of the majors, having released King Kong years earlier, most of the Bing Crosby/Ginger Rodgers musicals & some of the best Horror & Film noir of the 1940’s.
Hitchcock was already known at the Master of Suspense & his very specific style of filmmaking was already pretty established. Since his first job in films was as a set illustrator, he meticulously storyboarded every shot that appears in his films. He often said the actual physical process of making a film was dull & uninteresting, preferring the preparatory work on the script & storyboards to the technical & time-consuming work on set. He was famously mis-quoted as referring to actors as cattle, but he later explained what he meant was they were to be treated as cattle, ie ordered where to go & what to do. He notoriously would drink quite a bit at lunchtime & sometimes would sleep in his chair while various shots were being set up. While he had many disagreements with actors he got along very well with Ingrid Bergman & Cary Grant was often referred to as what Hitchcock imagined as his on-screen reflection.
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When Hitch was making films in England he began the tradition of making a cameo in each of his films & he does appear in Notorious in one of the party scenes. As his fame grew in the US, in the 50’s, through his movies & his television show, he made his cameos earlier & earlier in his films because he began to see it as a distraction, so he wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible. His appearance is more than 1 hour into Notorious. A similar repeating element of Hitchcock was his use of a McGuffin, that is something that drives the plot forward, but ultimately becomes unimportant. When asked why it was called a McGuffin, Hitchcock would recite a joke that he said was famous in London about 2 Scotsman on a train.
Hitchcock’s twisted & repressed sexuality is prevalent in many of his film & is often pointed to in his use of icy blondes like Janet Leigh, Tippi Hedren, Eva Marie Saint, Kim Novak & most famously Grace Kelly, that on the surface were cold, but underneath a roiling cauldron of sexual desire. This sexual element often led Hitchcock in direct conflict with censors tasked with upholding the strict & chaste Production Code. In particular, where Notorious is concerned it is his flouting of the 3 second rule for kissing. No kiss could be longer than 3 consecutive seconds. In one of the most famous scenes watch how long he is able to extend a kissing scene & make it feel both natural & intimate, while loosely adhering to the 3 second rule. Censors were dumbfounded as to what to do & let the scene stand as shot.
One of the most famous elements of Notorious is a key. You’ll know its significance when you see it. After shooting was complete, Cary Grant stole the key & held onto it as a good luck charm. 4 years after filming Notorious Ingrid Bergman became internationally “notorious” for having an open affair with director Roberto Rossallini, who was directing her in Strombolli. Both Bergman & the Italian director were married at the time & to compound matters, Bergman became pregnant. Grant, in a magnanimous move, sent the key to Bergman letting her know of its good luck properties. Finally, many years later at an event to honor Hitchcock for his lifetime of work Bergman presented the key to Hitchcock as a token of her everlasting esteem.
Also starring Claude Rains & in her only US movie performance, Leopoldine Konstantin, who as Rains mother was only 4 years older at the time of filming. Named as one of the 1,001 movies you MUST see before you die, here is Notorious!
Hitchcock’s twisted & repressed sexuality is prevalent in many of his film & is often pointed to in his use of icy blondes like Janet Leigh, Tippi Hedren, Eva Marie Saint, Kim Novak & most famously Grace Kelly, that on the surface were cold, but underneath a roiling cauldron of sexual desire. This sexual element often led Hitchcock in direct conflict with censors tasked with upholding the strict & chaste Production Code. In particular, where Notorious is concerned it is his flouting of the 3 second rule for kissing. No kiss could be longer than 3 consecutive seconds. In one of the most famous scenes watch how long he is able to extend a kissing scene & make it feel both natural & intimate, while loosely adhering to the 3 second rule. Censors were dumbfounded as to what to do & let the scene stand as shot.
One of the most famous elements of Notorious is a key. You’ll know its significance when you see it. After shooting was complete, Cary Grant stole the key & held onto it as a good luck charm. 4 years after filming Notorious Ingrid Bergman became internationally “notorious” for having an open affair with director Roberto Rossallini, who was directing her in Strombolli. Both Bergman & the Italian director were married at the time & to compound matters, Bergman became pregnant. Grant, in a magnanimous move, sent the key to Bergman letting her know of its good luck properties. Finally, many years later at an event to honor Hitchcock for his lifetime of work Bergman presented the key to Hitchcock as a token of her everlasting esteem.
Also starring Claude Rains & in her only US movie performance, Leopoldine Konstantin, who as Rains mother was only 4 years older at the time of filming. Named as one of the 1,001 movies you MUST see before you die, here is Notorious!
