Skip It, Darling

Watched: Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious at Film Forum this afternoon. It's been a while since I stared at Cary Grant on a large screen for a long time.

[deep sigh]

It's been a while, too, since I saw a movie at Film Forum, especially one in the afternoon. There is no crowd like a Film Forum crowd, especially one in the afternoon. Lots of older film buffs, mostly men, sitting alone, their coats spread out over two seats. One older man who invariably falls asleep, not because he's not enraptured, but because he's older, his rhythmic snores interrupting the theater until someone taps him gently. Genuine laughter at all the appropriate parts. Smart laughter.

The movie was so good I feel like eating my fingers. The screenwriter, Ben Hecht ... there wasn't a word of dialogue I didn't want to hold in my mouth for a minute. Every time Devlin told Alicia to "skip it," I wanted to turn around and chew my lip. I'm going to start saying that.

The movie, when it came out in 1946, was criticized for the length of time Grant and Bergman kissed on screen (the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, dubbed the "Hays Code," was still in effect; "Scenes of Passion.") There are two such scenes of embrace, one on a hill in Rio where the two first kiss, and one in the garden of Sebastian's house, when Sebastian is watching them. Neither lasts more than a few seconds.

What the MPPC couldn't censor was the movie's sexiest scene, when Alicia and Devlin are gliding around her apartment, their first dinner together, not kissing at all but melting into each other's necks and faces and brushing lips, even while he's on the telephone hearing his messages, telling the operator distractedly to "read it to me ...."

Hitchcock - um, he knew how to work around a code.