A Mankiewicz on Hitchcock

 If you're a frequent viewer of cable's TCM (Turner Classic Movies), you know that prime time host Ben Mankiewicz and actor/comedian Mario Cantone were partners every Sunday night in October. Together they discussed and presented scary movies. They were fabulous together, For Halloween night, they presented the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, PSYCHO. 

 Ben mentioned that PSYCHO, although old, feels modern because Hitchcock opens the film with graphics that slide into view to tell us where we are, when and at what time: "Phoenix, Arizona," "Friday, December the Eleventh" and "Two Forty-Three P.M/" Then the camera pans over to a hotel room window. We peer in on two lovers who just enjoyed some afternoon delight. Secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is lying on a bed. She's wearing a brassiere and a half-slip. Her boyfriend, who wants a divorce from his money-hungry wife, is shirtless. Ben mentioned that seeing two characters like that in 1960 was pretty bold. And it was.

Ben should take a look at Hitchcock's 1946 classic, NOTORIOUS. It stars Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains. This film opens with a graphic telling us we're in "Miami, Florida," "Three-Twenty P.M." on "April the Twenty-Fourth, Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Six."

Then we're introduced to the patriotic Alicia Huberman whose German father has just been convicted of treason against the United States. Alicia (Ingrid Bergman in one of her best Hollywood roles) is very independent, She likes cocktails and she likes older men. She definitely is not a virgin. She is, however, open to true love and she's deserving of true love. She's approached by a handsome but occasionally caustic government agent (Cary Grant). With her knowledge, beauty, sophistication, connections and her past, she's of interest to Uncle Sam. Devlin, the handsome federal agent, becomes her main contact for what U.S. federal officials will ask to do for her country.

The government office, dominated by older men in charge, recruits her to do spy work in Rio. The government wants her to infiltrate a nest of Nazis in the home of one of her late father's Nazi friends. The Nazi friend (Claude Rains) lives with his Nazi mother. He's an unmarried man who once had deep romantic interest in Alicia. The interest was not at all mutual. Alicia did not testify on her father's behalf. She loves America and hated his political views. Patriotic Alicia accepts the espionage assignment, an assignment that puts her life in danger.

 The U.S. government officials essentially ask Alicia Huberman to go to bed with a Nazi to uncover secret new plots against America. She does all the dangerous hard work -- vertical and horizontal -- while those male officials back in the safe, comfortable office make snide remarks about her not being a virgin. This angers the handsome agent who's her contact.  THAT sexual aspect was pretty bold for 1946 -- and it would've been bold for 1960 too.

Tell Ben.

Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS was not-so-loosely remade by director John Woo as the Tom Cruise thriller, MISSION: IMPOSSIBL 2 released in 2000. Key scenes from the original were recreated. Thandie Newton starred as the woman with a "notorious" past who's approached to help the Mission Impossible team root out a villain with a deadly German item. She learns that the handsome guy she's initially attracted to (Tom Cruise) is a secret agent. She discovers this like Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) does during a high-speed vehicle chase in the first 20 minutes of NOTORIOUS. Newton's character accepts the dangerous mission to re-establish contact with the villain, a man once romantically interested in her. In another key scene, a famous one in the 1946 original with Hitchcock's three stars, she attempts to pass information to her contact (Cruise) at a racetrack while the villain is present. Anthony Hopkins makes a cameo appearance playing the role Louis Calhern had in NOTORIOUS opposite Cary Grant. Thandie Newton's character, like Ingrid Bergman's, will get a poison in her system. In both versions, the "notorious" woman/spy will be saved by the handsome contact agent.

The NOTORIOUS screenplay by Ben Hecht was not noted in the opening credits of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2. It should have been, in my opinion.