THE WRITER’S EYE WITH Dean James

THE WRITER’S EYE WITH Dean James

Watching The Classics From A Different Point View

Recipe for a classic wartime romance

1 charismatic American secret agent

1 beautiful woman with a checkered past

1 Nazi chemist desperately in love with that woman

The seasoning: Cary Grant plays American agent Devlin; Ingrid Bergman is the American daughter of a convicted German spy; Claud Rains is a Nazi scientist in Brazil in love with Bergman

What can a writer learn from this?

This was Hitchcock’s breakthrough film: nuanced, emotionally charged, and suspenseful. Grant and Bergman are sent to Brazil to discover the secrets of a German chemical company composed of Nazis. While waiting for their assignment, Grant and Bergman fall in love. Then the assignment comes: Bergman is to ingratiate herself with Rains and his circle. Rains was already in love with her. Torn between love and duty, Grant tries to tell his superiors that Bergman isn’t up to the task. When they deny him, he has no choice but to insist that Bergman do her job. Bergman dutifully spies on her husband and his associates, and the breakthrough, involving a bottle of wine, leads to a tense, edgy scene with Bergman, Rains, and Grant. Rains discovers the truth of what happened in the wine cellar and confesses to his mother, a ruthless Nazi played with chilling effect by Leopoldine Konstantin. Mother and son start slowly poisoning Bergman and isolate her in a room with no phone. Grant, concerned about lack of contact, manages to get into the house and discovers what’s going on. In one of the most superbly suspenseful scenes Hitchcock ever directed, Grant rescues Bergman while Rains watches helpless, knowing that he will be killed.

What a writer can learn:

Much as in Casablanca, by watching the actors carefully, a writer can learn how to reveal character by behavior. In other words, how to show rather than tell. Grant, Bergman, and Rains were never better than in this film. The suspense slowly ratchets upwards, both with regard to the romance between Grant and Bergman and with the exposure of a deadly Nazi plot. The rescue scene at the end is utterly chilling, with the viewer knowing that any moment disaster can strike. This is my all-time favorite suspense film, and a textbook example of how to do it with sophistication and intelligence.