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I still maintain that Notorious is Alfred Hitchcock’s underrated masterpiece. A lush, sexually wrought thriller, it takes a backseat to his later films in most film critics circles, perhaps because it is more conventional than his other work, yet I think it is his most emotional film. Bergman plays, how shall I put this delicately, a woman of ill repute who drowns the sorrows of a rotten childhood and even more rotten Nazi father in copious booze and sex. She is recruited by the United States government to spy on Nazi collaborators now making their home in Brazil, hoping to start up the motherland’s war machine again. The job involves using her potent charms to lure a friend of her late father under her spell. With a face like Bergman’s, that is rather a given, isn’t it? Things get, shall we say, complicated when she, inevitably, falls for her handler. I say inevitably because her handler is played by Cary Grant and the woman is only human.
Oh, Cary Grant. Let me talk about Cary Grant for a moment. Grant was never a more prickish bastard than he was in this film, but a magnificent bastard. He treats his charge with barely contained loathing, yet he falls quickly under her spell and loathes himself for it. The relationship between Grant and Bergman’s characters isn’t a particularly nice one or healthy one for that matter, yet their blazing chemistry negates any objection. The way they look at each other, hold each other, reveals two wounded souls who have found in each other something to hold on to. Although never made explicit, one gets the feeling that Grant’s character Devlin fell in love with Bergman’s Alicia long before they met. He had been tailing her and working his way into her inner circle long before their first encounter. He saw something in her, a passionate, resilient woman who was dealt a bad hand in life, a woman which even the government failed to really see.
But back to Bergman and her lovely, expressive face. There is no better scene in this film than when Alicia tells Devlin, that she has made her mark her newest bed companion, to rub his face in the situation she blames him for. Obviously hurt, Devlin lays into Alicia, calling her a cheap whore who can never change, never be redeemed by true love. Hitchcock keeps the camera on Bergman’s face as her facade simply crumbles, as each word cuts deeper and deeper. Hitchcock never used the camera better.
#TRUTH ALL OF THIS #PERFECT SHIP THAT WAS ACTUALLY REALLY DYSFUNCTIONAL SHIP
250 Films Meme | 114 | My Favorite Wife (1940)
↳ Favourite 26/50
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne … BEST CINEMA COUPLE EVER!
(via goddess-)
Marriage license, did you say marriage license? Oh I love you Adam, Alex, Peter, Brian, whatever your name is.
(via sociopathicdorito)
50 Favorite OTPs: Jerry Wariner/Lucy Wariner - The Awful Truth
Lucy: I’m still in love with that crazy idiot and there is nothing I can do about it.Jerry and Lucy aren’t particularly nice people. They scheme, sabotage and completely dismantle each other in public and in private, but that is beside the point. If love is a game, these people are each other’s greatest opponents and they should never play with anyone else. No one will ever get Jerry quite like Lucy does and no one will get Lucy the way Jerry does and because of this…THEY DRIVE EACH OTHER INSANE. Over the years, the more I watch this movie and I watch it least three times a year, I realize that these two people can’t stay away from each other because they are not really alive unless they are with each other. The way they spark off each other and the way they let each other be completely insane is why they work and why they can’t really be with anyone else. If love is a form of insanity, these two have the exact same mental illness. And, yes, this is completely romantic. I think.
50 Favorite OTPs: Alicia Huberman/T. R. Devlin - Notorious
Alicia: Say it again, it keeps me awake.
Devlin: I love you.
The Awful Truth (1937)
One of my favorite scenes in film history. I love that this is the moment she realizes she still loves Jerry … after he has made a complete fool of himself and completely embarrassed her. She still loves him and there is no one else in the world for her.
TCM Summer Under the Stars 2011 - August. Mark your calendars.
Cary Grant - August 21
6:00am — This Is the Night
7:30am — I’m No Angel
9:00am — My Favorite Wife
10:30am — The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
12:15pm — Every Girl Should Be Married
1:45pm — Room For One More
3:30pm — The Philadelphia Story
5:30pm — North By Northwest
8:00pm — Gunga Din
10:15pm — Only Angels Have Wings
12:30am — Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
2:15am — The Bishop’s Wife
4:15am — Bringing Up Baby
I am glad they aren’t showing too many Hitchcock films because I feel like those get overplayed, but I would have showed Notorious instead of North By Northwest. Also, a little sad that The Awful Truth is nowhere to be found. I adore, however, that My Favorite Wife is here (so underrated!!) and Gunga Din will be shown. I’ve actually never seen the latter and have been meaning to see it for ages. But, seriously, My Favorite Wife…
Is that a puppy in your pocket, Cary or you just happy to see me. No Notorious? :(
(via thomasdestry)
Bringing Up Baby
(Source: formerlyghostsontv, via derevko)
