I've seen Notorious several times. It is considered one of Hitchcock's great movies, and it certainly contains some skillfully created suspense scenes (the champagne in the ice bucket is kind of brilliant). Yet, I have never particularly enjoyed the film, and have only rewatched it in hopes of figuring out why people like it. But this last time, I got a clearer idea of why I don't.
First off, there's the cast. Claude Rains is great, but I'm not so hot for Grant and Bergman. Bergman is simply totally unconvincing as a party girl. She is a girl you cast as a nun or a secretary, not as a hard- drinking girl who likes to sleep around.
And while I usually find Grant very likable, in this movie he is anything but. He is an out and out jerk. Yes, I understand a lot of the conflict is between her need for words and his for actions, but it doesn't make him less of a jerk, nor make her anything other than an idiot.
The story itself has many issues. First off, the whole idea is a bit scatterbrained, and the fact that Bergman isn't told her assignment until she's done there seems pretty ridiculous; nine out of ten people would take the next flight home.
This movie is one where Hitchcok's McGuffin concept fails. For those not familiar with the anecdote, the McGuffin refers to that thing everyone in the movie and no one in the audience cares about.
It's a clever conceit, but it only works if you care about what happens to the people in the movie. It didn't matter what was going on in North By Northwest, but we were rooting for Grant to survive.
There is simply nothing I care about in Notorious. It is just two miscast actors chasing after something no one is even supposed to care about. If you want to see Hitchcock the technician, it's a good movie to watch, because he does a lot of nice things in it. But for me, it's just a difficult movie to love.
First off, there's the cast. Claude Rains is great, but I'm not so hot for Grant and Bergman. Bergman is simply totally unconvincing as a party girl. She is a girl you cast as a nun or a secretary, not as a hard- drinking girl who likes to sleep around.
And while I usually find Grant very likable, in this movie he is anything but. He is an out and out jerk. Yes, I understand a lot of the conflict is between her need for words and his for actions, but it doesn't make him less of a jerk, nor make her anything other than an idiot.
The story itself has many issues. First off, the whole idea is a bit scatterbrained, and the fact that Bergman isn't told her assignment until she's done there seems pretty ridiculous; nine out of ten people would take the next flight home.
This movie is one where Hitchcok's McGuffin concept fails. For those not familiar with the anecdote, the McGuffin refers to that thing everyone in the movie and no one in the audience cares about.
It's a clever conceit, but it only works if you care about what happens to the people in the movie. It didn't matter what was going on in North By Northwest, but we were rooting for Grant to survive.
There is simply nothing I care about in Notorious. It is just two miscast actors chasing after something no one is even supposed to care about. If you want to see Hitchcock the technician, it's a good movie to watch, because he does a lot of nice things in it. But for me, it's just a difficult movie to love.