The Classic Thriller That Put Alfred Hitchcock on the FBI’s Watchlist

Whether it’s depictions of violence, obsession, or coded sexuality, Alfred Hitchcock has never been afraid to push artistic boundaries. The Master of Suspense made his name from thrillers and mysteries that defied conventions of cinematic structures and character archetypes. He extracted thorny ideas buried within our souls and deployed them at a mainstream level, as seen in classics such as Rear Window, Vertigo, and Psycho. On the surface, Hitchcock made accessible, audience-friendly romantic thrillers with a touch of social commentary, but as the director worked his magic and placed the viewer in the mind of his protagonists, the provocative nature of his films became evident. While he was a daring visionary, drawing attention from federal authorities was likely never on his agenda.Notorious, a seminal Hitchcock film, apparently put the director on an FBI watchlist.

Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Notorious’ Uses a Dangerous MacGuffin

After years of making sturdy thrillers in his country of origin, Great Britain, Hitchcock arrived in Hollywood in the 1940s to announce himself as a true visionary. He worked with producer David O. Selznick, now Hollywood royalty, thanks to the overwhelming success of Gone With the Wind, collaborating on the Best Picture-winning Rebecca, Spellbound, and The Paradine Case. While Rebecca earned the coveted Best Picture at the Oscars, Hitchcock disowned the film, claiming it was compromised by creative clashes with Selznick, ultimately making it “not a Hitchcock picture.” Notorious, a script by classic Hollywood staple, Ben Hecht, was originally a Selznick production, but the producer, fixated on developing his Western epic, Duel in the Sun, sold the project to RKO.

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Not only is the film, about an espionage plot between an American agent, T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant), and the daughter of a German war criminal, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), one of his stone-cold masterpieces, it was the debut of Hitchcock as an unfettered visionary. He was now his own boss, which led to Hitchcock becoming a celebrity figure with an instantly recognizable iconography. Notorious, a mature evolution of his thrillers and mysteries, was a huge step for Hitchcock as an artist. More than anything, the film forever confirmed to Hitchcock that the specifics of his plot were irrelevant. The 1946 spy film noir deployed a MacGuffin, the term adopted by Hitchcock to describe a plot device with little importance that exists solely to set the characters and events of the story into motion. Audiences were not meant to care about the MacGuffin, which was a case of uranium. The point of concern was the scintillating relationship between two lovers, Devlin and Alicia, and the complications of national allegiances. However, one party found the MacGuffin anything but frivolous.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Thriller Had Unfortunate Timing

The filming of Notorious coincided with the Manhattan Project, the top-secret military operation in Los Alamos, New Mexico to build a nuclear bomb during World War II. Anyone who saw Oppenheimer last summer knows the extent of the program’s importance. No one outside the site (a person or country) could catch wind of this operation. For Alfred Hitchcock, uranium was ostensibly a laughing matter — a cheap ploy to get its movie stars Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in a room together. The U.S. government and its team of expert physicists had a different relationship to the rare element. For them, uranium was nothing to take lightly, as it was a key component to building a nuclear bomb. Considering the heightened sensitivity over nuclear elements during the mid-’40s amid the war against Germany and Japan, the timing of Notorious‘ filming couldn’t have been worse.

In the groundbreaking book, Hitchcock/Truffaut, a series of interviews between Hitchcock and French New Wave maverick François Truffaut, the readers comprehend the scope of the Master of Suspense’s career. It’s an insightful text on film criticism and the power of the director. Notorious is a fan-favorite among Hitchcock aficionados, including Truffaut, who cites it as the “very quintessence of Hitchcock.” The director worked closely with Ben Hecht to conceive of a suitable MacGuffin. They knew Alicia needed to infiltrate a camp of German scientists in South America while accompanied by Devlin. To simplify plot motivations down to something visual and concrete, they landed on a cache of uranium. Hitchcock, an astute individual, was well aware of uranium’s lethal potential, as he informed an incredulous producer, skeptical of the MacGuffin, that the element was used to build atom bombs. Furthermore, he even received intel during pre-production that a certain confidential scientific operation was underway in New Mexico.

Before filming, Hitchcock and Hecht visited a doctor at the California Institute of Technology to discuss the nature of uranium ore. They asked the scientist, “How large would an atom bomb be?” The scientist was alarmed. “You want to have yourselves arrested and have me arrested as well?” he exclaimed. The doctor warned the two that they were in over their heads, which, according to Hitchcock, turned out to be an accurate prophecy, as the director claimed that after this meeting, the FBI began following him for three months. The FBI’s surveillance of Hitchcock did not lead to any arrest or prosecution, as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which ended World War II, occurred a year before the release of Notorious.

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman Are at Their Best in ‘Notorious’

Hitchcock never found a circumstance when he couldn’t demonstrate his wry sense of humor. Responding to the producer who thought his uranium plot device was ridiculous, Hitchcock stated, “Well, all it goes to show is that you were wrong to attach any importance to the MacGuffin.” He assured him that the story was merely a love story about two people on opposite sides of the war who must double-cross their way to falling in love. While Hitchcock was unflappable in realizing his vision, he was open to changing the MacGuffin to a case of diamonds if push came to shove, because, at the end of the day, no one was purchasing a ticket for uranium. They were paying admission for the double-billing of Grant and Bergman.

What’s most remarkable about Notorious is that it contains an element used to build a nuclear bomb, but it’s completely superfluous, as the real radioactive energy of the film is the chemistry between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, both frequent Hitchcock collaborators who are giving their best work here. Notorious also features Hitchcock’s most dazzling camera movements and attention to detail, headlined by the immaculate crane shot zooming in on the key in Alicia’s hand. Hitchcock, unfairly denoted as a cold cynic, portrays genuine romanticism between its protagonists intertwined with an opaque espionage story. Uranium wasn’t the director’s only discovery, as sincere emotionality was never so present in his prior films. The film tracks Hitchcock’s evolution as an artist, who evolved from basic thrillers to unique genre concoctions. He continued to make thrillers that satisfied innate audience desires, of course, but each of his films following Notorious was rich with intense character stakes… even if you weren’t entirely sure what the stakes of the basic plot were.

Notorious is available to stream on Tubi in the United States.

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