|
By
NICK ZEGARAC
I'm not exactly sure what
Criterion means when they advertise their discs as
"pristine" or "fully restored." "Notorious" is
Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece about Nazis, murder
and deception. It stars Cary Grant as Devlin, a
mysterious stranger who turns up at a party hosted
by Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman). It seems that
Alicia's father is a convicted Nazi sympathizer
and that Devlin -- actually an FBI agent -- has
been assigned to secure her complicity in a plot
to expose a ring of Nazis operating in Rio. After
some initial apprehension and a really good smack
-- literally -- Alicia decides to accompany Devlin
to Rio. There, the two begin a romance. But Alicia
is conscious of the fact that her own sexual past
is checkered. When she is assigned to seduce an
old friend of her fathers, Alex Sebastian (Claude
Rains), Devlin pulls away from their relationship.
When Alex proposes marriage, Devlin suggests that
Alicia go through with it. She does, assuming that
Devlin believes the worst about her, that she is a
woman of easy virtue whose wares have once again
been sold to the highest bidder. But Alicia's
resulting marriage is not without danger. Alex's
mother, Anna (Leopoldine Konstantin) hounds the
newlyweds at every turn and, after Alex discovers
that Alicia and Devlin are working for the FBI, he
and Anna concoct the slow demise of Alicia,
poisoning her a little at a time to make it appear
as though she is merely sick.
"Notorious" is perhaps Hitchcock's most perfectly
realized collaboration with producer, David O.
Selznick. By all accounts, the union between
producer/director was a tempestuous one. Both
wanted control over the project, though Selznick
eventually won out. The film is tinged with
Hitchcock touches, including the brilliantly
staged "discovery" scene in which Devlin
deliberately has Alex stumble upon he and Alicia
locked in a heated embrace in order to throw Alex
off the their trail of deception.
However, Criterion's minting of "Notorious" is
neither pristine, nor is it fully restored. What
it is, is almost the same transfer that had
previously been made available on DVD through
Anchor Bay at bargain basement prices. In 1997
Anchor Bay released a bare bones version of
"Notorious." Then, the image was smooth, somewhat
softly focused, but overall, nicely rendered, with
an impressive looking gray scale and deep, rich
blacks. The Criterion DVD maintains those pluses
but adds a host of negatives to the mix, including
a sharpening to the image that makes it grainy and
digitally harsh, rather than merely sharper. The
blemishes inherent in the original camera negative
stick out much more on Criterion's version than on
the Anchor Bay counterpart. Edge enhancement,
aliasing and shimmering of fine details rear their
ugly head from time to time. The audio is
identical to the previously issued DVD from Anchor
Bay and is nicely balanced. But Criterion's
version of "Notorious" misframes the title
sequence with a black border and also substitutes
an RKO studio credit for the Selznick
International original -- both present on the
Anchor Bay disc.
The packaging of Criterion discs leads one to
believe they are getting more for your money than
you actually are. The packaging says deleted
scenes and alternate endings, but these are
actually reprinted script pages that one can read
about the film that might have been. There is no
actual film footage to accompany these. In
addition, the isolated music track is rather
scratchy sounding and also includes the effects
track -- ergo -- it's really pointless to listen
for fidelity purposes. Listening to a crowd
cheering over a music cue while the principles are
rendered mute doesn't really make a whole lot of
sense. Also, there is a Lux Radio Broadcast (audio
only, of course) track that's not in very good
shape, considering how amazing the film was. Do
your wallet a favor and wait for the rights to
these films to revert to another studio that is
more humble in their asking price than Criterion. |
