Miss Understood: Hitchcock’s Bad Girl Broads

Le Femme Fatale, Hollywood noir favorite, at first irresistible, sexy and wild, and then, broken, whorish, deadly. The subjugated woman, sacrificed, used. Nobody does it better than ol’ Hitch. But here we’ve got something else to contend with: serious attitude, reputation, a sense of purpose and notoriety. Of these ladies, each has two sides, one good, one bad, not so much deadly, as just plain old misunderstood. As Queen Streisand herself has elegantly demonstrated, the mirror does indeed have two faces. A reflection, herein, deserved of examination.

The Films: Notorious, North by Northwest, Psycho

Viewing order importance: As above

Notorious

Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman – “On the wagon? That’s just a phase.”
Daughter of a Nazi sympathizer and known party-time girl is enlisted by US government to do some good old fashioned spying on underground Nazis in Brazil. Sauvé agent Cary Grant also has some love business to take care of, but then throws our Alicia to the wolves, accusing her of being a slut and a drunk to boot. "Once a tramp, always a tramp."

She first becomes a double agent, befriending Alexander Sebastian, Nazi turned Brazilian played by the excellent Claude Rains, who is hiding out in South America. Cary, Alicia’s only contact with the outside world, constantly accuses her of being a binge drinkin' party girl, and then tells her to dry her eyes when he makes her cry. Then he offers her up as a sacrificial wife to the bad guy. Just screw the info out of him already.

So, Alicia has no choice but to drink and fuck to prove her loyalty, assuming her bad-girl role to protect her sad broken heart. She is so reduced to her roll she tells Cary she is hung-over when she is actually dying from being poisoned. Only whence Cary pulls his puffed up, overly-proud head out of his ass does he realize the folly of his ways. Poor Alicia, between the booze, poison and screwing her thinking has been fogged. Give her a break!

North By Northwest
Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall – “She uses sex like some people use a fly swatter.” She at first is a seemingly bored train traveler a bit too interested in a dalliance on the wild side with a fugitive, "I'm 26 and unmarried. Now you know everything.” It turns out Eve is actually in league with the bad guys. Or is she? She goes through a whole lot of torment at the hands of Cary Grant, having really "gotten under his skin" and is accused of all kinds of nasties: whoring and lying for starters.

But once she is exposed as a "double agent" Cary can't get enough of trying to save her - putting himself on the line and even yanking her back from certain death by Mount Rushmore face. Is she redeemed in the end? Well, Cary does make an honest woman out of her by making her the fourth Mrs. Thornhill, and the viewer is then privy to her baptism by honest cock, in the form of train thrusting into tunnel. Way to go, bad girl!

Psycho
Anthony Perkins as Mother – “A boy’s best friend is his Mother.”

Now if there ever was a woman misunderstood, it's gotta be Mother. Tony Perkins's murderous feminine side is a force to be reckoned with. Anytime any sort of sexual arousal comes "up," Mother steps in and takes care of business, cause as we all know, there's nothing that kills sexual excitement quite like Mother. But calling Mother a murderer is really not quite fair. She's got a really bad image because she killed that hot blond chick in the shower, but Mother is really just Tony's idea of Mother, not how Mother was in real life. In fact, Mother was a hot-blooded lady trying to get it on with her man-meat until Tony ruined it all. So ease up on the lady. She's dead for Christsake.

Conclusion:

Obviously Cary Grant plays a fairly instrumental roll in making a woman feel like shit. And who can even imagine the effect he may have had on Mother.

Moral of the Trilogy:

Give the bad girl in your life a break today!