NoraGilbert

She Makes Love for the Papers:

Love, Sex, and Exploitation in Hitchcocks Mata Hari Films Nora Gilbert University of Southern California

any critics consider North by Northwest (1959) to be, as Raymond Bellour has put it, Alfred Hitchcocks lavish rejoinder to his earlier (1935), similarly plotted The 39 Steps (77). And, indeed, when viewed through the eyes of the narratives male protagonists, the two films can be seen to trace almost identical trajectories of false accusation, police pursuit, and inadvertent submersion in international espionage activity. But, if we choose instead to view North by Northwest through the eyes of its female lead, it is far more accurate to label it as a rejoinder to another earlier film about a woman who is prostituted by her country in the name of patriotism: Notorious (1946). Placed in the tenuous position of the mythologized Mata Hari sexspy, both Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) and Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) are forced to negotiate a complex web of seduction, deception,romance,andduty.ThisMataHarisubplotexaminesacallousedAmerican governmentthatpimpsitsfemalecitizensforpoliticalgain. Even though the legend of Mata Hari as the greatest woman spy of the century 1 has been largely debunked by historians in recent years, the iconic erotic dancerwhowasexecutedbytheFrencharmyfortreasoninthemidstofWorldWarI continues to symbolize a certain politicized brand of the femme fatale within the cultural imagination. And since, as Mary Ann Doane notes, the femme fatale has a special relevance in cinematic representation (1), it is not surprising that Mata Hari style seductresses have been routinely featured on the silver screen. For the most part, these characters play into the stereotype of the conniving, sexually rapacious, deceitful woman, leading many feminist critics to complain that they reinforce and promote male fears about female sexuality. 2 Moreover, historians like Tammy Proctor have demonstrated the extent to which the false image of the sultry spy courtesan has overshadowed and belittled the very real contributions made by women who have served in civil or military positions as part of the intelligence community over the yearswomen who worked as soldiers, not seductresses (5). ButthetwoheroinesofNorthbyNorthwestandNotoriouswhoareexplicitlylinkedto the legend of Mata Hari throughout the course of their narratives function in a different way than the majority of their celluloid sisters, for their stories have less in common with the fictive tale of sexual dominance, romantic intrigue, and political
1

ThislabelcanbetracedbacktothefinalremarksmadebyprosecutorAndrMornetatMata Hariswartrial,Theevilthatthiswomanhasdoneisunbelievable.Thisisperhaps thegreatestwomanspyofthecentury(qtd.inWheeler,84). 2 See,forexample,theworkofDoane,Wheelright,orWhite.

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betrayal that was told by prosecutors during Mata Haris war trial than with the revised account of Dutchborn Margaretha Zelles beleaguered life in espionage to whichmosthistoriansgivecredencetoday. In 1985, the French minister of National Defense was persuaded to break the sealoncourtdocumentsthatweresupposedtobekeptinconfidenceuntil2017,one hundred years from the date of Mata Haris execution. According to the evidence uncovered therein, Mata Hari had agreed to spy just twice in her life. The first time was in May of 1916, when she accepted 20,000 francs from the Germans to perform some lowlevel informing for them. But Mata Hari did not, in fact, provide the Germans with any information; to her mind, the money was payback for some furs which had been confiscated in Berlin at the outset of the war. The second time that Mata Hari took on a spy commission was in September of 1916, this time for the French. Her reasons for agreeing to spy for the French were threefold. First, she needed money, demanding the staggering sum of one million francs for her work. Second,shehadrecentlyfalleninlove(forthefirsttimeinherlife)withablinded,21 yearold Russian officer who was laid up in a French war hospital; she hoped that agreeing to help the Allied cause would gain her the permit she needed to visit him. Third, she wantedto replenishher sense of importance,whichhad beguntodwindle since her prominence a decade earlier as the toast of the Parisian nightlife. Had thingsgone accordingtoplan,Mata Hari mightindeedhave becometheallpowerful politicalseductressthatherenemieswouldpainthertobe. What Mata Hari did not realize was that the French intelligence officer who commissioned her services in 1916 was her enemy. His name was Captain Georges Ladoux,andbythetimeoftheirfirstmeetinghewasalreadyconvincedthatshewas aGermanagent.Hopingtocatchherinamistake,LadouxinvitedherintotheFrench intelligence fold, though he never gave her any assignments or paid her any money. Frustrated with her lack of deployment, Mata Hari took matters into her own hands in December by seducing one German official and extracting some old and insignificant military information from him, which she proudly offered up to Ladoux. But this act proved to be the source of her undoing: the German official perceived immediately that she was spying for the French and began sending out false radiograms (in a code that he knew the French had already deciphered), depicting MataHariasaGermaninformant.Thiswastheprimaryevidenceprovidedby Ladoux at her war trial, and it was enough to send her to the firing squad. Historians have now determined, however, that Ladoux knew that the radiograms were decoys months before the trial began but chose to conceal this fact in order to obtain a conviction. The question, of course, is why. Why did both the French and the Germans resort to subterfuge in order to assassinate a woman who was posing little threat to either nation? According to many biographers, the answer is tied to the larger gender politics of the day: As a woman and as a public figure, Mata Hari represented a disturbingly mobile femininity. Her trial was an attempt to fix that mobilitywithinthe regime of sexualandimperial relations (White 74).Thusthetrue story of Mata Harior as close to that true story as we can getappears to be less about the untrustworthiness of female sexuality and more about the untrustworthiness, even sadistic cruelty, of male authority. And the same could be saidofHitchcocksNotoriousandNorthbyNorthwest. In critical discussions of these works, relatively little attention has been paid to the emotional plights of Alicia Huberman or Eve Kendall resulting from the Film&History:41.2(Fall2011) 7

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perverseness of their patriotic duties. This is perhaps somewhat more understandable in Eves case, since, as Steven Cohen points out, the films concentration on Roger [Cary Grant] pushes her subjectivity to the margins of the narrative action so that the drama in her story appears to happen solely off screen (15). But the omission is harder to explain when it comes to Alicia, whose Mata Hari storyunfoldsentirelyonscreenandinfactaccountsforthebulkofthefilmsdiegetic tension. Most male analysts of the film, including Hitchcock himself, have chosen to view it from Devlins (Cary Grants) perspective rather than Alicias. Thus, according to Hitchcock, The story of Notoriousis the old conflict between love and duty. Cary Grants joband its a rather ironic situationis to push Ingrid Bergman into Claude Rainss bed (qtd. in Truffaut 171). Following a similar logic, Lee Edelman argues that Notorious is based upon the fantasy wherein women must take shit from men in order to take men from the realm of shit (155), and Michael Renov analyzes the masculine anxieties at play within the male system of Hitchcocks Notorious (30). EvenessaysthatdofocusuponAliciaoftenfindwaysofdeemphasizingherpersonal stake in her own story. John Beebe, for example, uses Alicias character as a metaphor for the entire postwar psyche; he does not think we get very far by seeingherasanactualwomanexperiencingsomethingpersonallydiscomfiting(29). One notable exception to this critical disregard for Alicias feelings can be found in Tania Modleskis The Women Who Knew Too Much, in which we are given a full chapter devoted to considering the ways that Alicias story expose[s] some of the problems of womens existence under patriarchy (58). Modleski does identify Alicias sexualized job description as one such problem and hypothesizes that the threat inherent in Alicias role as a Mata Hari may account for the severity of the punishment she undergoes throughout the course of the film (61), but the observation remains hypothetical. Moreover, because North by Northwest is not one of the primary films explored in Modleskis book, the similar psychological experiencesofEveKendallarelargelyunexamined.WhenEveisconsideredincritical reviews, she is generally written off as an undeveloped mystery, a problematic unknown;asChristopherMorrisputsit,sheisamaskwithoutaknowableinterior.It isasifherfacebecametheresidual,thecontainerofthenothingnessdissimulatedby her layers of protective secrecy (208). Indeed, the personal backstory that humanizes Eve and explains how she came to be a sexual operative for Central Intelligence is confined entirely to one brief scene in the woods near Mount Rushmorea scene which, not coincidentally, the studio brass wanted to cut from the movie, but which Hitchcock insisted was indispensable. When Hitchcocks two Mata Hari films speak to one another, however, the detailed depiction of Alicias storycanbegintoelucidatethemerepenciledsketchofEves. 3
3

IamnotthefirsttouseananalysisofNotoriousasameansofbetterunderstandingNorthby Northwest.RobertJ.CorberperformsasimilarcomparativeexplorationinInthe NameofNationalSecurity:Hitchcock,Homophobia,andthePoliticalConstructionof GenderinPostwarAmerica,thoughhisgoalinsodoingistoclarifyRogersposition withrespecttosexualpoliticsratherthanEves.WhereasNorthbyNorthwest focusesontheconstructionofmaleheterosexualsubjectivityinrelationtothe discoursesofnationalsecurity,heargues,Notoriousfocusesontheconstructionof femaleheterosexualactivity.(Corber,202).

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WhendoIgotoworkforUncleSam? Although Notorious explicitly announces its postwar setting by informing us that its story begins on April the TwentyFourth, Nineteen Hundred and FortySix, the action of the film seems more accurately to reflect the scenario faced by American women during the course of the warnamely, Uncle Sams invitation to join the workforce as a means of fulfilling their patriotic duty. Devlin, of course, uses precisely this word to entice Alicia into the (post)war effort; when she angrily asks whysheshouldbothertohelp,hecoollyandsomewhatcynicallyreplies,Patriotism. But,asmuchasAliciapretendstobeunmovedbythisappealtohersenseofduty(I dont go for patriotismor patriots), it is only a matter of minutes before we see her wholly giving in to the nationalist guilt trip that Devlin has laid upon her. In fact, takingUncleSamuponhisjobofferseemstodowondersforAliciasselfesteem.As soon as she arrives in her assigned pointcountry, Brazil, she cuts back on her notoriously excessive drinking and even begins to smile (uncynically) for the first time in thefilm. Her entire demeanor smacks ofempowerment,as is seen in the first conversation between Alicia and Devlin in Brazil. She begins, I wonder if at the Embassy somebody could get me a maid. Its a nice apartment, and I dont mind dusting and sweeping, but I hate cooking. When Devlin dutifully responds, Ill ask them,Aliciaappearstorelishhisnewlysubservientmodeandcontinuestoexploitit by adding, And while youre at it, find out when I go to work, and doing whatto whichDevlinhastilyreplies,Yes,maam. Thisexchangeisimportantforseveralreasons.Ononehand,itdemonstrates aclearshiftingenderroles,astheoncesuperiorDevlinisrelegatedtotheroleofyes man. It is, in the words of Richard Abel, the point in the perverted fairy tale when the hero is reduced to functioning as the heroines helper (162). But it also highlights the fact that Alicias pride in her work arrives before she has learned what work will she be doingan unfortunate oversight on her part. Interestingly, Alicias delight in freeing herself at least partially from the sphere of domestic duty is soon Film&History:41.2(Fall2011) 9

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undermined when, only two short scenes later, we see her volunteering to cook a chicken in the icebox for Devlin, thus embracing the very domesticity that she had seemedsoadamantlytoreject.Infact,Aliciaappearstobeevenhappierinthemake believeroleoflovingwifethanshehadbeeninthepromisedroleofworkingwoman: Marriagemustbewonderfulwiththissortofthinggoingoneveryday,shecroons. But while Alicia is busy cooking away in the kitchen (albeit not very skillfully: her chicken does, after all, catch on fire), Devlin is busy learning of the lurid and demeaningnature of her jobassignment.ForAlicia is calleduponnottobeRosiethe Riveter,butrather,assheputsitwhenshehearsaboutthejob,tobeMataHari:She makesloveforthepapers. Although Eve Kendall is approached to perform a similar service for the American government, her situation is different from Alicias inasmuch as her job offer comes after sex and even love have already entered into the equation. As she explainstoRogertowardtheendofNorthbyNorthwest,ImetPhillipVandammata partyonenightandsawonlyhischarm...IguessIhadnothingtodothatweekend,so I decided to fall in love. But Eves authentic sexual and romantic feelings for Vandamm (James Mason) areallegedly, at leasteradicated when the Professor and his cohorts reveal to her a few sordid details about her lovers political activities. It is at this point that the Professor, as Uncle Sam incarnate, invites Eve to become a Cold War Mata Hari. Eve immediately accepts, for a reason that could just as easily have been pronounced by Alicia: Maybe it was the first time anyone ever asked me to do anything worthwhile. Of course, the irony of this assertion is surely notmeanttoescapeournotice;asRichardMillingtoncorrectlypointsout,whatEve is offered as a moralized career...is a role as a tramp (140). The very process, then, of turning Eves relationship with Vandamm into her jobof turning her self interestedplayintosociallyconstructiveworkrequiresEve,likeAlicia,toimmobilize herbodyasaprivatecommodityandtomobilizeitascorporate,politicalcommodity. Thatisherpatriotism. The fact that Eve and Alicias sense of empowerment upon being recruited into the intelligence fold is severely tempered by the sexual nature of the work each woman is asked to perform reflects the gender politics that governed Hollywood content at the times both films were made. According to Thomas Doherty, in his studyofwartimeandpostwarcinema,ProjectionsofWar: To reconcile feminist aspirations and chauvinist shibboleths, the genderspecific genre work called for dexterous manhandling. So potentially discombobulating were the new projections that women minded wartime cinema made certain to channel and constrain whateverrevolutionaryspirititunleashed.(155) To avoid gender discombobulation in films that were feared to be too women minded, Hollywood films balanced any potentially liberating messages with equally deflating onesmeaning that if Alicia or Eve is to be trusted with an important, top secret government jobto be let inside the allmale club of war (149)that job mustalsoconstrainthewomansambitionbymanhandlingherbody. Likesomepeopleuseaflyswatter And yet, as certain feminist critics have made clear, there are ways in which wemayperceivetheexcessivesexualityofthefemmefatale(andherpoliticalcousin, the Mata Hari figure) in a more empowering light. For, although the sexual tenor of Film&History:41.2(Fall2011) 10

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Eve and Alicias work does demean the woman on the most obvious levelhere is a job that none of the male suits in Washington would ever stoop so low as to performit is also, as Modleski has pointed out, a type of work that is extremely threatening to men because it involves women exploiting their sexuality to gain knowledge and power (61). Hence, even after Alicia undertakes her sexual assignment, we continue to see hints of the gender role reversal that had begun when she and Devlin first arrived in Brazilsuch as, for example, the dress code inversionthatRichardAbelnoticesintheridingclubscene,withAliciainhatandtie, Devlin hatless and tieless (163). In North by Northwest, too, there are multiple references to the fact that Eves successful espionage work, sexualized as it may be, makes Eve matter more to the U.S. government than Roger ever could. Indeed, a disgruntled Roger also points out the inequity of their undercover roles when they meet up in the woods after his fake shooting: I guess its off to hospital for me and back to danger for you. I dont like it a bit. This expression of concern for Eves safetyisneatlycoupledwithanexpressionofresentment. Ofcourse,RogerlikesitevenlesswhenheisundertheimpressionthatEveis a sexual operative working under Vandamms employ. During this phase, Roger is bitterabouthissexualmanipulationbythattreacherouslittletramp,ashecallsher, andrepeatedlydiscussesthethreatthathersexualityposestohisownsafety.Atone pointhebetsthatEvewouldbeabletoteaseamantodeathwithouthalftrying; atanotherhewondersifVandammisgoingtomurderhimbyask[ing]thisfemaleto kiss me again and poison me to death; at yet another he denounces her for using sex like some people use a fly swatter. Early in Notorious, Devlin describes the threateningallureofAliciainsimilar,thoughmoreplayful,terms: Alicia: Go on. You can hold my hand. I wont blackmail you for it afterwards.Scared? Devlin:Ivealwaysbeenscaredofwomen.ButIgetoverit. Alicia: Now youre scared of yourself. Youre afraid youll fall in love withme. Devlin:Thatwouldntbehard. Alicia:Ohnow,careful,careful! As lighthearted as this banter may sound, it hints at the very real problems that will stand inthe way of Devlinand Aliciasromanticunion:forthe bulk ofthefilm, hewill beseparatedfromherbecausehebuysintothedangerousfemmefatalelabelplaced uponherasaresultofhersexuallypromiscuouspast. But the fact that the characters played by Cary Grant are so quick to link female sexuality with male peril does not necessarily indicate that the films themselves subscribe to this misogynistic view. In both cases, the Cary Grant characters are at their least appealing, from the audiences perspective, when they are the most condemnatoryin Rogers case, during the brief time when he mistakenly believes Eve to be on Vandamms side; in Devlins case, throughout the majorityofthefilmasherepeatedlyandrathercruellycensuresAliciaforherwanton ways. In other words, just because Devlin and Roger consider Alicia and Eve to be femmes fatales does not mean that Notorious and North by Northwest are directing their viewers toward the same conclusion. Julie Grossman makes a similar argument with respect to an entire film genre in her recent study Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir, insisting that the women of noir are not portrayed as the one dimensional bad girls that most critics believe them to be but rather as three Film&History:41.2(Fall2011) 11

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dimensional human beings who are wrongly read as onedimensional bad girls by the male characters who interact with them. Grossman begins her discussion by relating the basic plotline of Notorious, a film that she considers to be paradigmatic of the trend. To be sure, there is nothing onedimensional about the performance of Ingrid Bergman; even at her most flirtatious or most inebriated, she comes across as a thinking, feeling, sympathetic woman with whom the audience is clearly meant to identify. I would argue that, although Eve receives less character development than does Alicia, Eva Marie Saints own bravura performance in North by Northwest confutes any onedimensional indictment of Eve as a treacherous little tramp. Moreover, by allowing us, again and again, to see the pain or worry on Eves face at moments when Roger cannot, Hitchcock subtly works to undermine Rogers femme fataleprejudiceslongbeforesheisexoneratedinRogerseyes.

Stop!Stop To further destabilize the stereotype of dangerous female sexuality, HitchcockimbueshisMataHarifilmswithasenseofthedangerthatcanarisefrom male sexualityas well. Afterall, both Alicias liaison with Devlin andEves liaison with Roger turn out to be, to a large extent, more threatening to the female participants than to the male. In Eves case, becoming romantically involved with Roger literally puts her life at risk. As the Professor explains to him in front of Mount Rushmore, If you hadnt made yourself so damnedly attractive to Miss Kendall that she fell for you...our friend Vandamm wouldnt be losing faith in her loyalty now. Although Eve stashed Roger away in her train compartment at the behest of Vandamm,optingtobesexuallyintimatewithherstowawaywasclearlyachoicethat she made on her own. Roger may be somewhat joking when he asks the Professor, Are you trying to tell me that Im irresistible? But the truth is that Eves inability to resist him is precisely what, as the Professor tells us, has put her in an extremely dangeroussituation.ForHitchcock,amanssexualnaturecanbefatal,too.

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With Alicia, the dalliance with Devlin occurs before her relationship with Alex has begun, but her sexual attraction to Devlin continues to torment her throughout the course of the film and ultimately results in endangering her life as well. This tension culminates in the famous kiss scene at the party, in which Devlin and Alicia pretendtokissin ordertoconcealtheirreal reasonforbeing inthecellartogether (to search Alexs wine bottles). Slavoj iek accurately notes the irony of this scene whenheremarksthattheysucceedindeceivingthehusband(forthetimebeing,at least),butwhattheyofferhimasalureistruthitself(73).But,althoughthetruth that iek identifies here is certainly the existence of a couple in love, the truth portrayed in the kiss scene is, more precisely, the persistent danger of Devlins attractiveness to Alicia. For it is Alicia who becomes immediately emotionally invested in the pretend kiss, causing her passionately to murmur Oh, Dev, Dev whensheshouldbeworryingaboutAlexsapproachingfootsteps.AnditisalsoAlicia whocannotquitebringherselftopushDevlinawayintimesothatitwillconvincingly appear as if he has been forcing himself upon her. Indeed, Alex does not appear to buy for one moment Alicias feeble assurance, I couldnt help what happened; hes beendrinking.AlexsrecognitionofthistruthaboutAliciasattractiontoDevlinsets the stage for Alex to lay a trap for Alicia (who returns to his ring the winecellar key she had stolen), which in turn sets the stage for his conspiring with his mother to poisonher. The characters played by Cary Grant are, then, as sexualized (and as sexually threatening) as the characters played by Ingrid Bergman and Eva Marie Saint. Positioning Grantastheobject offemalelust momentarily putshim inthe same boat as the objectified women: if Eve and Alicia are shown to be treated at times like piecesofmeat,sotooareRogerandDevlin.InNotorious,thisparallelismostevident when Alicia first meets Devlin at her party in Miami: her initial interaction with him consists of her calling him handsome and plying him with more and more alcohol. Indeed,hishandsomenessseemstobetheveryqualificationthatlandshimthejob of enticing Alicia into the war effort; in much the same way that the CIA will later dangle Alicia as bait infront of Alex,here theagency dangles Devlin as bait for Alicia. Although we are shown only the back of Devlins handsome head throughout this exchange, Alicias continual, hungry glances at him tell us all we need to know about theallureofhisfront.

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In North by Northwest, during her banter with Roger on the train, Eve repeatedly refers to the nice face he has. In fact, shetells himthat her attraction to his face is thereasonsheisntrattinghimouttothepolice.Later,RogerusesEvestinyrazorin the bathroom of the Chicago train station, having lathered up not only to hide from the police but also, given the explicit power his face has just exerted over a woman helping him escape arrest, to preserve the sexual commodity that is arresting his abettor. But it isthe humoroushospital scene of NorthbyNorthwestthatbest depicts the subject/object reversalinquestion.In it,Roger sneaksthrougha female patients hospital room in order to escape from the room next door, in which the Professor has been holding him captive. The female patient is young, attractive, blonde, and wearing a pink nightieall of which would usually make her the object of a male gaze of desire. In fact, she seems to assume that Roger is a sexual predator who has invaded her room for the purpose of attacking her; to defend herself, she yells out Stop! But then she puts on her glasses. In Film and the Masquerade, Mary Ann Doane describes the way in which the prop of glasses is typically used to depict female sexuality in classical Hollywood film: The woman with glasses signifies simultaneously intellectuality and undesirability; but the moment she removes her glasses (a moment which, it seems, must always be shown and which itself is linked with a certain sensual quality), she is transformed into spectacle, the very picture of desire (27). What Hitchcock does, instead, is to showthe sexualizedwoman putting on her glasses and consequently being transformed into spectator, the very picture of desirousness. From the moment that she clearly sees her wouldbe predator, the

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nameless blonde in the hospital room switches from defense to offense, murmuring wistfully,breathlessly,lustfully,Stop....

But even if, by dint of setting up Roger or Devlin to be ogled by the leading woman,Hitchcockisdrawingourattentiontothecommodificationofmalesexuality, the plots of both Notorious and North by Northwest position it mainly as threat; ultimately it is the womans body that will be bought and sold in practice. The relationship between Eve and Roger might start out with Eve as the aggressor, but this initial purchaser of the commodity (she tips the waiter five dollars to seat Roger with her on the train) is finally maneuvered into consumable object. We know that Eve will be exonerated from Rogers accusationIll bet you paid plenty for this little piece of sculpture, Roger hisses at Vandamm; shes worth every dollar of it, take it from mebut it must be Eves body, not Rogers, that is taken, exploited, in serviceto country. As theenvironment of war(hot or cold) suggests in these films,a man sacrifices his body in the battlefield; a woman, in the bed. In Notorious, Alicia initially perceives herself as powerful working woman (fully accessorized with Devlin as her man Friday), but the appearance is soon shattered by Devlins lack of faith in herandconstantinsinuationsabouthercheapness.BothEveandAliciaaresubjected tothelowestformofsexualdegradationbecausetheirsisphysical,notmerelyverbal or visual or circumstantial. The degradation is in the plot, enforced to the point that their bodies soon become undesirable sexual commodities: used goods open to derision. Ultimately, then, even though Eve and Alicias affairs with the Cary Grant character stem in part from active, even aggressive female sexual desire, thus momentarily reversing the gender dynamic, the narrative itself protects Roger and Devlinfromgenuineexploitation. Idontlikethegamesyouplay,Professor Hitchcock offers one significant counterpoint, however, to this merger betweenplotandmasculinedesire.TheendingsofNotoriousandNorthbyNorthwest are generally perceived to be conservative and compulsorily heterosexual in nature, Film&History:41.2(Fall2011) 15

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limit[ing] the scope of female agency by resorting to the conventional, concluding, fairytale rescue that Hitchcocks English films by and large avoid (Allen 90). While I would agree that the final moments of the films do conform to cultural stereotypes in that they allow Devlin and Roger to heroically rescue their respective damsels in distressDevlin by lowering Alicia down the staircases of Alexs treacherous home, Roger by pulling Eve up off the cliffs of Mount Rushmoreit is important to note that the men act heroically only when they begin to work against the exploitative governmental agencies that are responsible for endangering the lives ofthewomenthey love.Thispoliticaldetachment ofthehero ismore obviously true in the case of Roger, who disavows the U.S. governments agenda: I dont like the games you play, ProfessorIf you fellows cant lick the Vandamms of this world without asking girls like her to bed down with them and fly away with them and probably never come back, perhaps you ought to start learning how to lose a few ColdWars.DevlinalsosubtlyshiftshisloyaltiesintheconcludingsceneofNotorious. Although he seeks and is granted official permission to check on Alicia at Alexs house after he begins to suspect that she is ill, Devlins boss specifically warns him not to mess things up or take any chances when it comes to blowing Alicias cover. Upon hearing from Alexs butler that Alicia is confined to her bed, however, Devlin unhesitatingly chooses Alicias safety over the safety of his departments undercover operations and heads upstairs to extract her from harm. If she cannot escape the gender plotting of the narrative, Alicia can, by Devlins own political disavowal,escapetheplottingofhervillainoushusband.

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In his book In the Name of National Security, Robert Corber reads Rogers rebellion against the authority of Central Intelligence as a step toward heteronormativity, arguing that it becomes more important for him at this point in the film to rescue Eve from Vandamm than to follow the Professors instructions because doing so will return [him] to the private sphere where he can assume the role of breadwinner, a role that was considered crucial to maintaining the stability of postwar American society and that he has resisted throughout the film (201). But this reading underplays the seriousness of refusing to cooperate with ones government, particularly during the Cold War era in which North by Northwest was made. The fact that the film is structured in such a way that its protagonist can only become a good husband/father/breadwinner by repudiating his allegiance to Uncle Sam is, in my opinion, no accident. Nor is it an accident that Notorious teases us with the image of Alicia and Devlins happilywedded life (Marriage must be wonderful with this sort of thing going on every day) just before Uncle Sam pulls the rug out from under their courtship by hiring Alicia as his next Mata Hari. Founding the heroic sacrifice of the man on a perilous detachment from his government, though perhaps too faint in its structural consequence, nonetheless counters the narrative in which that government pimps a woman to answer the ambitions of her loyalty. A visual anticipationofthisnarrativedisruptioncanbeseenduringthelongestkissinscreen history, when Devlin must pull his lips away from Aliciasalmost as reluctantly as Alicia must later pull her lips awayfrom Devlins at thewine cellarin order to call in and check his messages, one of which contains the news that Alicias Mata Hari assignmentisawaitingher. With Notorious and North by Northwest, in which exploitation of the female body represents at first a means and then a perverse obstacle to romance and heroism, Hitchcock is able to elicit antiestablishment sympathies from his audience even while conforming to the heteronormative requirements of classical Hollywood cinema. WorksCited
Abel,Richard.Notorious:PerversionparExcellence.HitchcockinHollywood.Ed.JoelFinler. NewYork:Continuum,1992. Allen,Richard.HitchcocksRomanticIrony.NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2007. Beebe,John.TheNotoriousPostwarPsyche.JournalofPopularFilmandTelevision18.1 (1990):2835. Bellour,Raymond.TheAnalysisofFilm.BloomingtonandIndiana:IndianaUniversityPress, 2000. Bentley,Toni.SistersofSalome.NewHavenandLondon:YaleUniversityPress,2002. Cohen,Steven.TheSpyintheGrayFlannelSuit.MaskedMen:MasculinityandtheMoviesof theFifties.BloomingtonandIndiana:IndianaUniversityPress,1997. Corber,RobertJ.IntheNameofNationalSecurity:Hitchcock,Homophobia,andthePolitical ConstructionofGenderinPostwarAmerica.DurhamandLondon:DukeUniversity Press,1993. Doane,MaryAnne.FemmesFatales:Feminism,FilmTheory,Psychoanalysis.NewYorkand London:Routledge,1991. Doherty,Thomas.ProjectionsofWar:Hollywood,AmericanCulture,andWorldWarII.New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1993.

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