T. R. Devlin, an American agent, recruits Alicia Huberman to spy on a group of Nazis in Brazil — and finds that love and duty pull him in opposite directions.
In Notorious (1946), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant plays T. R. Devlin, an American intelligence agent. He persuades Alicia Huberman, played by Ingrid Bergman, whose father was convicted of treason, to travel to Rio de Janeiro and infiltrate a circle of German agents. Alicia must gain the trust of Alexander Sebastian, played by Claude Rains, and Devlin must watch the woman he loves put herself in danger.
Grant’s performance is restrained and quietly painful. Devlin is a man who cannot say what he feels, and Grant lets that silence do the work: a look, a pause, a sudden tenderness. His chemistry with Bergman is central to the film, and their scenes together, including a long kiss that famously dodges the censorship rules of the time, are among the most romantic in Hitchcock’s work.
Notorious is often regarded as Hitchcock’s most mature film, and Grant’s Devlin is at its heart — a hero who is also a flawed, jealous man, and all the more human for it.