‘Notorious’ (1992) has the nerve to take on one of Hitch’s best-crafted films

Notorious 1992

You have to give them credit for daring. Director Colin Bucksey and his team remake “Notorious” (1946) – perhaps the most lavishly crafted of Alfred Hitchcock’s suspensers – as a 1992 ABC/Lifetime TV movie. While a viewer can use it as a point of comparison to realize what a great decision-maker Hitchcock was when it came to staging, pacing and emphasis, it’s still an interesting exercise that must’ve been great fun for the actors and is mild fun for us.

After a black-and-white courtroom scene dooms the Communist (presumably terrorist?) father of our main character, Alicia (Jenny Robertson), we smash cut to the soapy color of the film’s present day. The spoiled but headstrong 1990s socialite is throwing a party. CIA agent Devlin (John Shea, “Mutant X”) pops in to recruit her, and we’re off and running on the same plot as the original, with Douglas Lloyd McIntosh mildly tweaking Ben Hecht’s classic screenplay.

Appealing leads

No one is Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, but that doesn’t mean Robertson and Shea are bad. The sexy Robertson has a soft feminine voice you want to listen to, and Shea is suave. Their level of chemistry is about the same as the Golden Age duo’s. Both Bergman and Robertson want to play the subtly encroaching feeling of love, whereas Grant and Shea are stuck in dapper movie-star mode.


Hitchcock Movie Review

“Notorious” (1992)

Director: Colin Bucksey

Writers: Douglas Lloyd McIntosh (teleplay), Ben Hecht (original screenplay)

Stars: John Shea, Jenny Robertson, Jean-Pierre Cassel


Rounding out the love triangle is Russian Communist operative Alex Sebastian, played by Jean-Pierre Cassel like Alan Rickman with any sense of humor squeezed out. When Alicia infiltrates his operation and marries him, but still must gather clues without being found out, the tension remains. The villains’ mansion isn’t a men’s club anymore – Sebastian’s sister Katarina (Marisa Berenson) is an extra threat.

Even though Paris looks nice on the inside and outside – with hotel balcony shots calling to mind Hitchcock’s color film “To Catch a Thief” – this “Notorious” isn’t as luscious. Sometimes it lapses into a primetime soap vibe with exposition overwhelming romance, intrigue and suspense – though never permanently.

Interestingly, the time jump doesn’t hurt the plausibility; one good thing about the U.S. perpetually being at war is that these spy-intrigue plots are evergreen. The 1946 film arrived after the defeat of the Nazis and the 1992 version comes after the fall of the Soviet Union, but by saying that the villains are trying to rebuild those systems, we buy it.

“Mission: Impossible” is among the franchises that take advantage of the baked-in spy state, and it would revive the “Notorious” plot again for “Mission: Impossible II” (2000), although that movie swaps tension for action. That’s where it goes wrong.

Watch it for Robertson

This one goes wrong by maintaining a pleasantly languid pace, rather than picking it up. For example, we and Devlin often check in with leader CIA leader Norman (Paul Guilfoyle, “C.S.I.”). Hitchcock and Hecht knew how to be propulsive up to the end.

Comparing Hitchcock’s and Bucksey’s versions, we can see how the old master knew how to parse out just enough information. The plot is silly, with Sebastian and his cohorts smuggling chemical weapons of some type in wine bottles and storing them in the wine cellar. Hitchcock and Hecht know how to power past lags by giving us intense moments where our heroine might get caught.

The 1992 version spells things out clearly and gives us more time to think, so we notice the silliness. For instance, an operative directly makes a big deal about the wine bottles in front of his colleagues and the eavesdropping Alicia. When he’s killed later, the good guys immediately suspect the wine bottles are the key. In the 1946 version, that scenario is messy and confusing, and ironically, that’s the way to pull it off as a filmmaker.

“Notorious” 1992 is respectable for a TV movie, though. In particular, I’m surprised Robertson didn’t become a star, instead merely having a steady career. The fact that she gets to sink her teeth into this juicy part – playing sexy, spunky and dying-of-poison — makes me fond of name-recognition-driven remakes. We’re on a sliding scale here: If you tackle one of Ingrid Bergman’s best roles and don’t embarrass yourself, count that as a victory.

RFMC’s Alfred Hitchcock series reviews works by the Master of Suspense, plus remakes and source material. Click here to visit our Hitchcock Zone.

My rating:

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