Notorious

Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious is now available on Blu-ray. Here’s a perfect opportunity to see one of the director’s masterpieces.

Several famous sequences come to mind. The famous tracking shot that starts at the top of the stairs, embraces the ballroom and ends on an extreme close-up of the key in Ingrid Bergman’s hand (which is not even in the script, by the way). The famous kissing scene that defied the censors who refused an on-screen kiss that lasted more than 3 seconds: the two leads alternate kisses and speech in a steamier way than a long uninterrupted kiss ever would have been.

I’d like to focus on more obscure aspects of the film, and on lost sequences.

Roy Webb

An often overlooked asset of the film is the score. Due to the fact that producer David O. Selznick had limited faith in the film’s potential success, he sold the project and the people attached to it to RKO. And the company’s head of the music department at the time was Roy Webb. Although he successfully worked there from 1935 until 1955 (the death of the studio) and despite the fact that he wrote the score for masterpieces like Cat People, Bringing Up Baby, The Body Snatcher (starring Bela Lugosi), I Married A Witch (starring Veronica Lake), etc. his work is still sadly underrated and poorly remembered. There are two major reasons for that: due to the disappearance of the company, none of the RKOmaster tapes were preserved. Also, the entire collection of his manuscripts was lost in a house fire.

Even now that the most obscure works of contemporary composers like Bernard Herrmann or Max Steiner are being released on CD, sometimes newly recorded, Roy Webb’s most famous scores remain in the vaults. The only way to enjoy his marvelous music for Notorious is available on the Blu-ray: it is the “international track”.

In order to facilitate the dubbing process in foreign countries, a sound track with just the music and effects mixed in was shipped abroad; the foreign dialog was then recorded and mixed with this track. Time has not been very kind to it, but it is a unique opportunity to enjoy the score.

Original credits

On first release, the credits mentioned RKO as the production company and distributor, as well as a Selznick credit concerning the "arrangement" between the companies. When it was later reissued through Selznick’s company, the credits were altered accordingly. This version was the one circulating until Criterion’s first DVD version. Here is the Selznick modified version:

The opening scene of the film was originally slightly different: the point of view was that of Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) and the two FBI agents watching her at the end of the brief scene were Adams (played by William Gordon) and Devlin (Cary Grant). Since the introduction of the character would be more efficient later in the film, Devlin was replaced by a random FBI agent played by Frank Wilcox.

Original version with Cary Grant

Retake with Frank Wilcox

Deleted scene on lobby card

Following that, a scene in Alicia’s apartment was supposed to take place the morning after the trial. Alicia was being dumped out of the blue by her boyfriend Ernest Weylin who, we learn from the dialog was supporting her. She proudly gives him back a bracelet. This scene was censored: it was unacceptable for a single woman to live with an older man out of wedlock (“loose sexual habit” was the term used). The part of Ernest was played by Gavin Gordon, the life partner of famous actor Edward Everett Horton. Gordon disappeared from the film, but one of the few still pictures taken on the set of that scene was used on promotional material nonetheless.

Bergman in a deleted scene

The love-hate relationship between Alicia and Devlin was even more explicit before two scenes were cut. A scene explaining Devlin’s sometimes cruel behavior towards Alicia took place while they were preparing for the horse ride to meet Sebastian. It is Alicia’s very cold attitude in this outtake that triggers Devlin’s reaction throughout the film.

Scene 351 took place in Paul Prescott’s office. Devlin asked him to be reassigned because the situation became unbearable to him, therefore admitting a vulnerability not so obviously expressed in other scenes. Since the whole dialog was shot in one continuous take and Louis Calhern (who incidentally replaced Ray Collins in the role of Prescott) was not available anymore to re-shoot, the entire scene had to go when the censorship board asked for a line about divorce to be cut.

Lenore Ulric at the party

Deleted scene on lobby card

Another outtake was originally placed after the arranged meeting with Alex: he, his date Mme Ortiza, and the couple of spies are having a drink somewhere in the park. While Mme Ortiza makes idle conversation with Devlin, Alex flirts with Alicia. They both walk away from the table under the watchful eye of Devlin. Mme Ortiza is played by Lenore Ulric. She still appears in the film during the horse ride, and during the party scene where she feels flattered that Devlin remembers her. But you can catch a glimpse of her during the diner scene where Alicia is first invited at the Sebastian mansion. During that scene, Mme Ortiza's husband (played by Antonio Moreno) was also invited, but his introduction (and subsequently his entire part) was completely cut.

Lenore Ulric visible in the distance

Ulric & Moreno in an outtake

Also, actor Lester Dorr is listed in the IMDb as playing the part of a motorcycle policeman in a scene cut from the film. Although there is such a part in the film (played by Garry Owen), I was not able to understand if the scene was re-shot with a different actor or if Dorr played in a different scene.

The film was to be bookended by three brief scenes involving envious government office file clerks who bitterly discuss Alicia's change of marital status and leave of absence. They were very brief scenes but their inclusion in the film, had they not been deleted, would have given a very different tone to the ending of the film. One of these girls was Bea Benaderet (the voice of Betty Rubble in The Flinstones) and another was played by Virginia Gregg in her first part : she later voiced the famous mother in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho!

I’d like to finish this article with a little bit of trivia from Notorious:

First of all, the obvious height difference between Claude Rains and Ingrid Bergman was partially hidden in their many scenes together by having Rains stand on a box or on stairs. This is especially visible when they walk away from the camera and Rainsbecomes smaller and smaller.

An almost casual indication in the script,  at the end of the scene where Alicia first sips some of the poisoned coffee, reveals that what the old lady is sewing is actually Alicia’s shroud.

And finally, if the voice of Senator Walter Beardsley sounds somewhat familiar to you, it’s because the part is played by Moroni Olsen, the voice of the magic mirror in Walt Disney’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

More pictures on A Lost Film Facebook page.

That’s all for today folks!

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Gaslight

Gaslight or When cinema tries to destroy itself.
Patrick Hamilton is a brilliant British play-write who penned among other things Rope's End, which was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. In 1938, he wrote Gas Light, a play about a woman driven crazy by the very man she loves so he can get his hands on some hidden jewels.







The play was filmed for TV with Judith Evelyn (Miss Lonelyheart in Rear Window) and Henry Daniell (Vincent Price appears in this Life Magazine picture) but the two adaptations that stand out today were made for the silver screen.

In 1940, British International Pictures produced a film directed by Thorold Dickinson starring Diana Wynyard (previously nominated for an Academy Award in Cavalcade). The suffocating story and its original source are not the only links to the world of Hitchcock.

The film is shot by Bernard Knowles who was Hitch's cinematographer throughout most of his British period. Actor Robert Newton (Most famous for playing Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island) had played in Hitchcock's last British film Jamaica Inn the previous year before the director headed to America.

Last but not least, the score was composed by little known British marvel Richard Addinsell, who later composed Under Capricorn, and conducted by Muir Mathieson who later conducted Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo when the 1957 musician strike prevented the composer from doing it himself.

Have you ever heard a musical theme which was so great that you felt you had known it all your life?
That's what happened to me when the credits rolled on that film. The music is that beautiful. A restored re-orchestrated medley was issued on CD but the score remains to be completely published.

The film was such a hit that it spun a remake by MGM starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, and introducing Angela Lansbury.

Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman & Joseph Cotten (1944 remake)

So how is this film relevant to this blog? Well, believe it or not, the success of a film can also be the cause of its loss! When MGM released their 1944 version of Gaslight, even though the previous film had been retitled "Angel Street" in the USA, they tried to have the negative and all prints of this film destroyed.

Allegedly thanks to director Thorold Dickinson, at least one print survived and the film is now available on DVD. Ironically, the print used on the DVD starts with an out-of-place MGM logo and music from a different film (I believe Jacques Tourneur's Romance of Radium), it then jump-cuts to the film's main title. The original musical intro was broadcast on the BBC a few years ago. Here it is:

And here is the film available in its entirety on youtube (with the MGM logo):

I also recommend the 1944 remake (This DVD has both films on it). Ingrid Bergman is simply divine as always and Angela Lansbury is devilishly pretty in her debut.

On the set of the 1944 remake

Here is a rare glimpse behind the scene of the two films during a very similar scene. If you're wondering what the two leading ladies are doing, you should know that corsets and other wardrobe requirements prevented actresses from sitting down and they used to recline on these "stand-up seats" between takes.


If you wish to see how a feeling of intense relief can be conveyed only through camera movements and music, watch the last shot of the original film. I find it mesmerizing.
[2014 update: the film is now available in a wonderful UK Blu-ray edition with a print restored by the BFI.]

That's all for today folks!

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