Enter Devlin (Cary Grant), a spy working for the U.S. government. Devlin seduces Alicia and recruits her to spy on Sebastian (Claude Rains), a wealthy and dapper middle-aged businessman who lives with her shrewd and joyless mother (Madame Konstantin). Sebastian, who pursued Alicia some years ago, eagerly takes the bait. Soon, Alicia and Sebastian are married.
Alicia learns that Sebastian is smuggling uranium ore in vintage wine bottles. But Sebastian is no fool, and soon reaches the inescapable conclusion that Alicia is a spy. He tells his mother, who decides to slowly poison Alicia, so that her death becomes the logical outcome of a progressive illness.
But Devlin, who has been in love with Alicia all this time, notices her declining health and comes to her rescue. Sebastian will probably be murdered by his fellow conspirators. After all, the Nazis can't be allowed to win in a Hollywood movie.
Louis Calhern has a supporting role as Devlin's smug yet obliging boss.
How others will see it. Notorious had the second-biggest box office of any 1946 RKO movie, trailing only The Best Years of Our Lives. Critics loved the movie as much as audiences.
Today at imdb.com, Notorious has 113K user votes, a high number for a black and white movie with mono sound. The user rating of 7.9 out of 10 is lofty albeit shy of amazing. The user reviews heap predictable praise upon the masterful director and his A-list cast.
How I felt about it. Director Alfred Hitchcock was known as "The Master of Suspense", and he earns his title with Notorious. Hitchcock evokes enormous drama from the key to Sebastian's wine cellar, and a cup holding poisoned coffee. Also important to this film's success is Ben Hecht's script, and a stellar cast that includes the best romantic leading man and leading lady in 1946 Hollywood, as well as stellar supporting actor Claude Rains, who like Bergman had an important role in another anti-Nazi Hollywood drama, Casablanca (1942).
It isn't too hard to poke a few holes in the story. There is no need for Alicia to actually remove Sebastian's key. All she needs to do is make a clay impression of it, and surely the American agents could quickly produce a duplicate. There is also no need for Alicia to guard the wine cellar door. Devlin could bring a date to the party, and the date could guard the door instead. Any absence of Alicia during a party is suspicious.
Devlin becomes the film's hero as he rescues Alicia, but it seems unlikely he would be able to accomplish this all by himself, including a private audience with Alicia and a long descent with her down a staircase and out the front door into a car.
While it is fun to throw Sebastian to the Nazi wolves, it would be better if he was allowed in the car to escape his fellow conspirators. The American agents could question Sebastian, and he would doubtlessly provide invaluable information.
The story thus has its problems, but they don't matter much, since everything else about the film is outstanding. Claude Rains give the best performance, and received the film's only Academy Award acting nomination. He had won in that Oscar category three years before (Casablanca), there playing second fiddle to Humphrey Bogart.
Notorious' other Oscar nomination was for Ben Hecht's screenplay. It was the final Oscar nod for one of the best-known screenwriters from the 1930s and 1940s.