Notorious was released in the U.S. in August 1946. Its premiere run at New York's Radio City Music Hall was a smash hit.
In addition to the $800,000 RKO spent to buy the film package (including script, director, and cast), Notorious cost about $2 million to make. It grossed $8-9 million.
Hitchcock makes his usual cameo appearance about an hour into the picture, drinking champagne during the big party at the Sebastian home.
Hitchcock and Ben Hecht worked together on a total of seven films, although Notorious and Spellbound (1945) are the only two for which Hecht received screenplay credit. The writer was also believed to have done uncredited work on Foreign Correspondent (1940), Lifeboat (1944), The Paradine Case (1947), and Rope (1948). Some sources list him as having made some uncredited contributions to Strangers on a Train (1951), which is probably attributable to some help he gave his assistant, Czenzi Ormonde, who did the rewrite of Raymond Chandler's script.
Along with James Stewart, Cary Grant was Hitchcock's most-used actor (both stars appeared in four Hitchcock films). In addition to this picture, Grant appeared in Suspicion (1941), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959).
Ingrid Bergman also appeared in the Hitchcock films Spellbound (1945) and Under Capricorn (1949).
Bergman and Grant appeared in only one other film together, Indiscreet (1958).
Cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff became a director. One of his best-known films was the suspense thriller The Window (1949).
Composer Roy Webb received seven Academy Award nominations for his film scores (although not for this one). He composed for a number of film noir pictures, as well as several directed by Notorious cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff.
Acclaimed costume designer Edith Head designed Bergman's clothes for this picture. She also worked on ten other Hitchcock films after this, up through his last picture, Family Plot (1976). Head was nominated for Academy Awards 35 times, including for Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955), and her designs won eight Oscars.
Famed cinematographer Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, 1941) did not receive credit as the second-unit director of photography on this picture.
John Taintor Foote, whose 1921 short story inspired the plot of Notorious, was also a screenwriter. Among his screenplays was the Tyrone Power picture The Mark of Zorro (1940).
Ethel Barrymore and Mildred Natwick were considered for the role of Nazi matriarch Madame Sebastian. Hitchcock worked with them both later: Barrymore on The Paradine Case (1947) and Natwick on The Trouble with Harry (1955).
Memorable Quotes from NOTORIOUS
ALICIA (Ingrid Bergman): The important drinking hasn'T started yet.
DEVLIN (Cary Grant): Don't you need a coat?
ALICIA: You'll do.
DEVLIN: Why do you like that song?
ALICIA: Because it's a lot of hooey. Nothing like a love song to give you a good laugh.
ALICIA: Waving the flag with one hand and picking pockets with the other - there's your patriotism.
DEVLIN: I've always been scared of women. But I get over it.
ALICIA: This is a strange love affair.
DEVLIN: What's strange about it?
ALICIA: The fact that you don't love me.
DEVLIN: When I don't love you, I'll let you know.
MADAME SEBASTIAN (Leopoldine Konstantin): Wouldn't it be a little too much if we both grinned at her like idiots?
ALICIA: You can add Sebastian's name to my list of playmates.
DEVLIN: Pretty fast work.
ALICIA: That's what you wanted, wasn't it?
DEVLIN: Miss Huberman is first, last, and always not a lady. She may be risking her life, but when it comes to being a lady, she doesn't hold a candle to your wife, sitting in Washington playing bridge with three other ladies of great honor.
SEBASTIAN (Claude Rains): Mother. I need your help. I am married to an American agent.
ALICIA: Say it again, it keeps me awake.
DEVLIN: I love you.
