Notorious (1946)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern, Alexis Minotis, Leopoldine Konstantin, Moroni Olsen, Reinhold Schünzel, Ivan Triesault.

Arresting espionage yarn from Hitch and screenwriter Ben Hecht; plays out within a suspense plot structure, but even more intriguing are the bitter romantic jealousies and the dissection of the “fragile integrity” of a woman’s character. Grant’s government agent recruits the daughter (Bergman) of a recently-convicted Nazi spy for a dangerous assignment infiltrating a Nazi ring hiding out in South America; to do so, she is instructed to get cozy with an old acquaintance (Rains) in the organization, leading to resentment from both parties. Executed with as much elegance as tension, strikingly photographed by Ted Tetzlaff. Made the most of its romantic star pairing in an unorthodox way—Grant’s charm is riveted to cold steel, Bergman is as ravishing as she is ambiguous, they smolder with desire in the so-called “longest kiss” on film at the time of its release, and they flame with indignation over their “joint betrayals”—and even their adversaries are given complicated depths (as the “duped man” in the equation, Rains is arguably even more sympathetic than Grant’s G-man). Remade for television in 1992. British diplomat Charles Mendl has a small role.

94/100