Espionage and romance have never been combined to such mutually tense
effect, as Bergman marries Rains to spy on him, wrecking her burgeoning
intimacy with Grant. In a textbook example of Hitch's disinterest in
realistic plot detail, the McGuffin is some black powder stored in wine
bottles that has something vaguely to do with the bomb. It really
doesn't matter though, when you've got Bergman on such sublime form,
Grant exploring undercurrents of bitterness and envy in his persona,
and Rains as a wonderfully sympathetic villain in the clutches of one of
the great Hitchcockian monster mothers.
