John Shea (1/92 Notorious)
Entertainment Weekly 1/24/92: John Shea | Notorious
TV Review: Notorious (1992)
By Ken Tucker | Posted Jan 24, 1992
Notorious (1992)
Start Date: Jan 28, 1992; Genres: Mystery, Suspense; With: Jean-Pierre Cassel and John Shea
Remember how sexy and suspenseful Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 Notorious was, with its heady mixture of Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Nazi spies, and U.S. government agents? Well, don't look for any of that sort of thing in Notorious, a clumsy remake starring John Shea (Baby M; WIOU) and Jenny Robertson (Bull Durham) in the great stars' roles. Director Colin Bucksey (Dealers) makes the crucial mistake of playing up the romance at the expense of the tension embedded in Ben Hecht's original script (writer Douglas Lloyd McIntosh has softened up Hecht's story here).
© Entertainment Weekly
Excerpt from New York Times 1/27/92: John Shea
Reviews/Television; Cybill Shepherd in a Tale Of a Crime Turned Sour
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR Published: January 27, 1992
Just peek for a few minutes at tomorrow night's Lifetime premiere, at 9, of "Notorious," a pointless updating of the 1946 Alfred Hitchcock film.
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Let's be fair to the cast. Even Grant, Bergman and Rains would have been unable to transcend this misguided concept. There is, of course, a gaping void at its very core: no Hitchcock.
© New York Times
Excerpt from People 1/27/92: John Shea
Picks and Pans Main: Tube
By David Hiltbrand January 27, 1992 Vol. 37 No. 3
In this update, Jenny Robertson takes the Bergman role as a reckless, over-imbibing jet-setter who is romanced and recruited by a smooth CIA agent (WIOU's John Shea, in the Grant role) to be a secret operative in France. With very mixed feelings, he sends her to seduce a sinister international arms dealer (Jean-Pierre Cassel, in the Rains role) who eventually takes Robertson as his wife.
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None of the leads shines. Most crucially, Shea, TV's modest answer to Warren Beatty, can't convey the subtle ambivalence that Grant gave the character. Because of that, the climactic rescue scene lacks suspense.
© People.com
Excerpt from Los Angeles Times 1/28/92: John Shea
TV REVIEW : 'Notorious' an Update of Hitchcock's 1946 Thriller
January 28, 1992|KEVIN THOMAS
Under Colin Bucksey's stylish direction, Jenny Robertson, John Shea and Jean-Pierre Cassel excel in roles created by Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant and Claude Rains without trying to compete with our memories of these larger-than-life legends of the silver screen. The new "Notorious" manages to be as romantic as the original but on a more intimate, realistic scale ideal for the small screen. CIA agent Shea falls for the beautiful, reckless American-born daughter (Robertson) of a convicted Russian-born traitor before being given the assignment of recruiting her to spy on one of her late father's old colleagues (Cassel), a suave Paris-based arms dealer. Robertson and Shea are quite touching as they determine to resolve maturely their conflict between love and duty, but it is Cassel who is the film's surprisingly poignant figure, a worldly, polished and utterly ruthless man rendered vulnerable by true love.
© LA Times
Excerpt from Las Vegas Review 1/28/92: John Shea, on The Alfred Hitchcock Wiki & Syracuse Post Standard 1/28/92
Lifetime's 'Notorious' is a pale imitation
Mark Dawidziak
Shea and Robertson try to recapture with grasping and gasping what Grant and Bergman accomplished with just quick glances and grins. It is a pale imitation of the terse verbal sparring Hecht concocted for Grant and Bergman. Shea and Robertson seem to be playing out a drab parody of Hitchcock's stylish thriller.
© Las Vegas Review
Excerpt from Sun Sentinel 1/28/92: John Shea
You`d Be Better Off Watching His Lips
January 28, 1992|By TOM JICHA, TV/Radio Writer
John Shea, who once was renowned for taking only quality projects, plays Devlin (like Hammer, he has no first name), who is assigned to be Alicia`s handler for the CIA.
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The relationship between Devlin and Alicia allows panting, sweating and groping galore, and plenty of beefcake from Shea (Lifetime, after all, does target women).
© Sun Sentinel
Excerpt from Lethbridge Herald 8/23/92: John Shea
Touche, John Shea: Actor heads toward producing
By MARGARET M. McOOVERN
In between these two dark roles, Shea went to Paris and did a remake of the Cary Grant role in Hitchcock's film, "Notorious." It was less of a stretch for him, since the character ended as the hero.
© Lethbridge Herald