Daily Dialogue — March 9, 2012

Alicia: [in bed, hung-over] I’m no stool-pigeon, Mr. Devlin.

Devlin: My department authorized me to engage you to do some work for us. There’s a job in Brazil…

Alicia: Oh, go away. The whole thing bores me.

Devlin: Some of the German gentry who are paying your father are working in Rio. Ever hear of the IG Farben Industries?

Alicia: I tell you, I’m not interested.

Devlin: Farben has men in South America, planted there before the war. They’re cooperating with the Brazilian government to smoke them out. My chief thinks that the daughter of a, uh…

Alicia: A traitor?

Devlin: Well, he thinks you might be valuable in the work.

— Alicia (Ingrid Bergman), Devlin (Cary Grant), Notorious (1946), written by Ben Hecht

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is refusal of the call, suggested by Ryan Smith.

Trivia: Alfred Hitchcock and Ben Hecht consulted Nobel Prize winner Dr. Robert Millikan on how to make an atomic bomb. He refused to answer, but confirmed that the principal ingredient, uranium, could fit in a wine bottle.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Here is a situation where the conflict of the refusal acts as ‘wrapping’ to shroud the exposition.

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