Notorious

Set and made in the months following the end of the Second World War, Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious is an espionage thriller set mainly in Brazil. The film features a more romantic plot than many of the director’s previous films and includes a couple of great performances from its leads Carey Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Alicia Huberman (Bergman) is the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy and is enlisted by her adopted United States to counter spy on Nazi activities in South America. Her handler and government agent T. R. Devlin (Grant) falls for his charge and jealousy ensues when Huberman goes to romantic lengths to infiltrate the Nazi group.

At its best, Notorious matches the tension and drama of any Hitchcock movie but there are large swathes which I found uninteresting. Unlike some of Hitchcock’s best which are tense and exciting from start to finish, Notorious ebbs and flows from extreme brilliance to mere average but overall is a very well made and intriguing film.

Casablanca

Although relatively popular and well received when released in the summer of 1942 due in part to events in North Africa at the time, Casablanca has since risen to be one of the most critically acclaimed and well though of films in history. It currently ranks number 23 on the IMDb’s Top 250, number 3 on the AFI’s 100 Movies and is one of Hollywood’s most loved romantic melodramas. The film is also one of the most quoted films of all time too with quotes such as “We’ll always have Paris”, “Here’s looking at you, kid” and the often misquoted “Play it Sam. Play As Time Goes By” being well known to people who have never even seen the film. Until today I was one of those people and like hundreds of other classic films it was on my list of must sees for a long time. Now it’s off that list and I’m glad of it. Although I wouldn’t personally put it towards the top of my favourite films of all time it is certainly a wonderfully taught and romantic drama which successfully mixes the geo-political problems of the age with a fine romantic story which remains eternal to this day.

The plot is set in the Moroccan city of Casablanca on the route of a great refugee trail from Nazi occupied Europe towards America. Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is a cynical and politically non aligned bar owner based in Casablanca whose neutrality is put to the test when an old flame unexpectedly appears back in his life.