Notorious

I watched Hitchcock's Notorious yesterday. It's one of those classic movies I thought I'd seen, but apparently never did.

It takes place during WWII and was first released in 1946. In 1946 it must have been a scandalous movie (hence the title) as it starred Ingrid Bergman as the daughter of a convicted Nazi traitor and the sort of woman you-wouldn't-want-to-bring-home-to-mother. She's recruited by an American spy (Cary Grant) to spy on Nazis in Brazil because her mother was American and she (Ingrid) remains loyal to the USA. Cary and Ingrid fall in love (of course), and the movie contains a love making scene that would have been censored except for Hitchcock's inventive directing.

Love making 1940's style. It may be hard to believe, but in 1946 prolonged kissing was considered too risque for the general public. Hitchcock got around this by having the couple alternately kiss and nibble each other during a 3 minute embrace.

But then, in the course of duty, she marries one of the bad guys so she can spy on him better. Cary stands by and lets her do it when just one word from him can save her from sacrificing herself (which I gather she did many times long before meeting Cary, but that's no excuse.)

Eventually her husband and his Mother, who's more Nazi than her son, find out that she's a spy and begin slowly poisoning her. When Cary finds out, he rushes to her side and daringly rescues her by half-carrying/half-dragging her down the stairs right under their noses.

It's a Hitchcock film so the ending is left to our imagination. Sometimes I find this unsatisfactory. Did she live? Did we win the war? Did they live happily ever after? I know the answer to one of the three is Yes so I'm going to assume that the answer to all is Yes. Because I like happy endings.