From the Vault with FunKay

[FunKay the Inevitable]

So I was running a thread in the Writing section, but I've kind of gone off it slightly but Dave made me this cracking signature as you can see above and I thought it'd be a waste not to use it. So I've decided to run with my 'From the Vault' feature in here instead as I hope I can stimulate some debate with more folks.

For details on the idea behind this, check out this link here, alongside From the Vault #1 which was John Boorman's 1968 film Hell in the Pacific.

Today's pick comes to us from the 'Master of Suspense' himself with my favourite offering of his:

From the Vault #2 - Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)

Starring the Hollywood mega powers of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, alongside the original Invisible Man himself, the immensely likeable if not fiendish Claude Rains, Notorious is a romantic spy thriller set (and filmed) during the fallout of the Second World War. Alicia Huberman (Bergman) is a lucid woman, devastated by the her father's imprisonment for being a Nazi spy. She is approached at a cocktail party one evening by a handsome man she has never met before, later identified as Devlin (Grant), a secret agent seeking to recruit her for a mission in Brazil.

There, she will infiltrate a ring of Nazi spies lead by Alex Sebastian (Rains). Unfortunately for Alicia and Devlin they didn't count on one thing - they never expected to fall in love, and when duty means Alicia will potentially have to share a bed with Sebastian, things take a turn for the worse.

Coming in the midst of one of Hitchcock's most successful spells, Notorious is the crowning achievement of Hitchcock's 1940s classics which include Rebecca and Shadow of a Doubt. It is a forefather to some of his later works such as his remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much and North by Northwest but it remains wholly original and constantly captivating.

Tapping into his training back at UFA (Universum Film AG - Germany's most famous film company of the early 20th century, responsible for putting out the work of industry leaders such as Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau and others), Hitchcock brings to the forefront several Germanic elements: the lucid woman, now fully ingrained in the film noir genre whose roots are firmly and famously based in German expressionism, along with those expressionistic images of illusion and exaggeration, alongside a slight surreal tinge that Hitchcock absorbed from his time working with Salvador Dali on the heavy handed Spellbound.

These elements are focused largely on Alicia, the film's central character, whose plight is brought to the screen with such pain and sorrow yet joyous potential by Ingrid Bergman, an actress famous for her ambiguity and clouded morals whose persona is perfectly captured in Alicia. She is constantly frustrated by having to live a lie, portray a false stereotype and cave into a lie that is the reverse of her father's istuation and somehow just as bad. She is spying for the 'good guys', but what is good exactly about the loss of one's identity and soul?

This leads wonderfully to the character of Devlin who too is conflicted with an issue. He works as a mirror image to Alicia. He deceived himself as opposed to those around him, and pretends to lobotomise his feelings for Alicia. Yet they bubble to the surface on several occasions, threatening the mission and driving him barmy. In a brilliant twist by Hitchcock, Devlin's character in fact takes on the femme fatale role commonly seen in noir, becoming a mysterious object of sexual ambiguity and desire. He then reflects such onto Alicia and attempts to perceive her as such.

The third main character of Sebastian too is stuck in a conflict. He loves Alicia with a genuine passion and seems like a good man if not for the fact he were, y'know, a FREAKING NAZI. Still Claude Rains brings his trademark sensitivity and warmth to the role, embodying the tragic empathy we feel for the Invisible Man once more. He is also the unfortunate bearer of Hitchcock’s mother curse, his domineering mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) the real leader of the troupe of Nazi's. If you've seen other Hitchcock films, you know the mother curse is not exactly a good sign for a character.

As for Hitchcock's direction, this film is up there with his best. The key/champagne/party scenes are possibly his most tense ever, cutting between the three main characters and the potential key to their demise, managing to keep the suspense increasing ever more while our heart slowly rises to our mouth for the culmination of the scene and the climax of act two. The high, almost omnipotent wide angle Hitchcock employs at the scene's start is grandiose in effect and sets the table in a very theatrical way, but he gets into true cinematic mode with recurring close-ups of a key in Alicia's hand and the bottle of champagne which are pivotal to the discovery of Devlin and Alicia's secret.

Spoiler

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The foregrounding of objects of importance and the hypnotic, chess board like flooring remind us of higher forces at work always, Hitchcock himself often the star of his film and of course there is the cameo which takes place in that party scene. Alongside all this there are elements of German expressionism dotted throughout with Alicia's inebriations (through one form or another) alongside typical Hitchcock sexuality as he crafts one of the most famous kissing of all time:

[YOUTUBE]Zu8JASfWb6A[/YOUTUBE]​

The genius of this scene is that while it is essentially one long kiss, the censors (who limited a kiss on screen at the time to a mere three seconds) could not edit or cut it as a result and Hitchcock was still able to sneak more or less the biggest indication that sex was very much of the pair's agenda into the film.

What Notorious brings us is an exploration of man and woman's love for one another but through the thriller genre. It is a romantic story through and through though the underlying sense of fear and, of course, suspense runs throughout. We are gripped and enthralled. This is a stone cold classic that to this day can not only entertain, but make you fall in love with the cinema all over again.

Got any comments on Notorious, Hitchcock in general or just want to chat about a future From the Vault entry (recommendations and considerations are always welcome) then comment below. Thanks for reading!

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

"Notorious" was the first Hitchcock film I ever watched, which is a bit strange given its general status as a forgotten classic.

I was raised largely by my grandparents, who had a collection of old movies recorded on VHS. When I was very young, before I had any awareness of movie genres or directors, my grandmother would let me take out a random VHS, put it in the machine, and we would watch it while she pealed oranges for me to eat. The only catch was that even if I got bored, we would finish whatever movie we started before going on to another. Sometimes we would get things I was more attuned to, mostly Disney films and recordings of classic cartoons. But often it was old black-and-whites, and at the age of 5 or 6 I would sit and try to figure out the adult plots and characters, while eating oranges and playing with Micro-Machines.

In retrospect, my grandmother was an OG.

I remember "Notorious" because it was the first time I'd ever seen Ingrid Bergman, and probably the first time I realized boys were different than girls. I mean Christ, look at this woman...

All that said, I haven't seen the film in over a decade, so I found a nice copy of it online and gave it a once-over. The end credits are still rolling, actually.

It holds up. Admittedly I was less than captivated at the start, but I remember it being Alicia's character that really hooks you in, so I kept going.

We live in such a different world these days that it's really easy to take for granted the role of women in Hollywood. Alicia is tame for 2015 - some feminists may even criticize a modern writer for making her too reliant on Cary Grant's Devlin as the tall, dark and handsome male protagonist. Obviously Al is writing a love story under the guise of a spy flick, so it takes an element of co-dependence, but if this were written in 2015 there would be a lot less subtlety, and a lot more explosions and Scarlett Johansson kicking ass.

That's sort of the point though. If it weren't for films like "Notorious", who in 1946 featured a female lead who gets drunk in public and throws people out of parties, we might still live in a world where Lucille Ball is the height of female independence (ugh).

Anyways, really good pick FunKay. Thanks for the nostalgia and reminder that I need to re-watch more Hitchcock soon.

Side note: Cary Grant is the most badass dude in the history of Hollywood. Basically if there was a hot actress who made it big between 1940-1960, Grant was put in a movie with them, and had himself some sweet, sweet love. Ingrid Bergmen, Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, Priscilla Lane, Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint... Lord, what a stud.