Notorious: 80th Anniversary!

Paramount and Stateside Theatres are bringing Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious back to the big screen on Wednesday, July 22, as part of the Paramount Summer Classic Film Series. It's the movie's 80th anniversary, and it's playing in the same city where the Paramount has been a fixture for over a century.

Notorious is one of Hitchcock's best suspense thrillers, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains. The plot follows a government agent who recruits Bergman to infiltrate Rains' secret organization of Nazis, and the two soon realize that falling in love on the job only makes it that much more dangerous. It's a slow-burn espionage story that works as much as a romance as it does a thriller, and seeing it in a theater is the way it was meant to be experienced.

There's something about the venue that fits a movie like this. The Paramount Theatre has stood on Congress Avenue in downtown Austin since 1915, making it the city's oldest surviving theater. It's a City of Austin and State Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it's one of the few remaining 'hemp houses' in the country, still using ropes and sandbags. It serves as an anchor for the Austin arts community, hosting the Moontower Comedy Festival and acting as the home for the city's red-carpet film premieres, alongside the State Theatre under the 501(c)(3) Austin Theatre Alliance.

This screening is part of the Paramount Summer Classic Film Series, so it's one of several classics they're running through the season. Notorious plays Wednesday, July 22, at the Paramount and Stateside Theatres in downtown Austin.