- The first true American Hitchcock: Reprises beloved chase, spy and romance themes
- Followed Rebecca but without overbearing producer David O. Selznick’s interference
- Work for hire: made with fellow but far more amenable hit producer, Walter Wanger
- Spawned single radio adaptation with star of Shadow of a Doubt and Under Capricorn
- Also inspired two comic strips, one from co-creator of numerous iconic characters
Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.
Foreign Correspondent: Writing on a Classic; Collectors Guide, Part 2: Censorship and anti-Nazi films, 3: Home video
1946 Italian poster by Paolo Tarquini, from the country’s first post-war release; two sheet
Contents
Production
Silent | party, windmill/continued
“Easily one of the finest pictures” – Time magazine
“The important figures in a fine cast bloom in Alfred Hitchcock’s hands.” – The New Yorker
The brilliant Alfred Hitchcock directed this 1940 Academy Award nominated spine-tingling thriller, an exciting mix of murder, romance, intrigue and mystery, starring motion picture greats Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall and George Sanders. A naïve reporter (McCrea) is dispatched to Europe on the eve of World War II. While covering a pacifist conference in London, he becomes romantically involved with the daughter of the group’s founder, and befriends an elderly diplomat who holds the secret of peace. When the diplomat disappears, the reporter stumbles onto the bloody trail of a major Nazi spy ring—and his future father-in-law may be the leader! Kidnapping, international espionage and exciting chase scenes in the Alfred Hitchcock tradition make this Foreign Correspondent front page news! – US Lightning Video VHS and Betamax (1985)
Foreign Correspondent followed a pair of Daphne du Maurier adaptations: Hitch’s last British film, Jamaica Inn; and Rebecca, his first in America. He would, of course, go on to adapt one more (supposed) du Maurier story, The Birds. Correspondent came hot on the heels of Rebecca, with their March and August 1940 US release dates. Both were enormously successful with critics and at the box office, with Correspondent garnering six Academy Award nominations to Rebecca’s eleven. On the night though, only Rebecca took home the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Cinematography.
Commencing with Foreign Correspondent, Hitch almost inevitably came to direct a series of propagandistic wartime films including Saboteur, Lifeboat, Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, followed by the post-war setting of Notorious. As such, in many ways Correspondent has the feel of a slightly belated entry in his golden run of 1930s British thrillers, especially with its frequently light-hearted tone and ephemeral, oral MacGuffin of a secret clause in a treaty.
It was co-written by Joan Harrison and Charles Bennett; the latter scripted all of that run with the exception of The Lady Vanishes, which was adapted by Launder and Gilliat after Bennett, pre-empting Hitch, had left for Hollywood. Also, like all the run bar Young and Innocent, Correspondent has key themes of war, politics and intrigue. In all, it adds up to “an intensely powerful drama, which never lacks action for a minute,” “keeps the audience guessing as to what is coming next” and had at least one flustered old lady crying, “I can’t stand it! It’s too exciting!”
This 1946 Danish poster, from its initial post-war release, is adapted from this still.
Essays: Brian Eggert | John Rossi | TCM
Even now, Rebecca often feels like more of a Selznick film than a Hitchcock, whereas Correspondent is a logical, bigger-budgeted extension of Hitch’s later British thrillers with fast wit and pacing, and a series of self-contained, action set pieces that rank among his best. Like those films, it continues warning people to wake up to the looming threat of war, which he’d already done on five outings, commencing with The Man Who Knew Too Much. Nonetheless, Rebecca and Correspondent were his only two to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar but unlike its more glamorous counterpart the latter signposted the way forward, as well as back, for his American career. Fittingly, Hitch stakes out his territory with a near-customary cameo early in the film.
Of course, due to strict censorship and the American policy of isolationism still in force at the time, Germany and the fascist threat are mostly referred to in passing but it’s obvious who the antagonists are. In fact, if anything Correspondent’s relative lack of specificity has helped keep it relevant to the ever-evolving cycle of threat, war and bloodshed in conflicts ever since, as with The Lady Vanishes et al.
Though it was shot entirely in LA, the film maintains an international feel with its American leads receiving able support from distinguished German actor Albert Bassermann, and quintessential expat Brits George Sanders and Herbert Marshall. The latter had, of course, previously starred in Murder! but his Hitch connections didn’t end there as he went on to appear in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and radio adaptations of The Lodger, The 39 Steps (twice), Rebecca and The Birds. Sanders, meanwhile, as the most conspicuous of at least 11 returnees from Rebecca, redeems himself as the unusually-monikered Scott ffolliott, in a drily heroic role that’s the antithesis of slimy, treacherous Jack Favell.
An Appreciation of George Sanders – Gary Kamiya | GS: Hollywood Remembers
US half sheet poster
Hitchcock: Hollywood Genius – Walter Wanger
Ever keen to subvert audience expectations, Hitch also cast several of the other leads against type but to say any more would completely give the game away. Also returning was assistant director Edmond F. Bernoudy, referred to affectionately as “dear Eddie“, following his sterling work on the multi-Oscar winning Rebecca. Incidentally, at least one actor from my hometown (and Alma’s) makes an appearance: ex-pat Holmes Herbert from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, plays the Asst. Commissioner. Though mostly bit parts, his screen résumé is to die for!
A long-standing fallacy about Correspondent has arisen from blithe repetition of statements in the innovative but flawed book, Hitchcock/Truffaut. Scholar J.L. Kuhns’ insightful essay, Hitchcock’s The Mountain Eagle, addresses the issue:
Hitchcock sometimes had the habit of disparaging his own stars and films, perhaps for the sake of an anecdote, and this has, unfortunately, been passed on by subsequent critics in their dismissal of such films as The Mountain Eagle, Waltzes from Vienna, and Jamaica Inn. These writers may have not even seen the films themselves and, by suggesting that Hitchcock rejected them, may make it more difficult for the rest of us to screen them and make up our own minds.
Sometimes a put-down of a film occurs through Hitchcock’s apparent desire not to confront an interviewer. The most surprising of these is Truffaut’s statement that Foreign Correspondent was a “B” film (p. 133). Truffaut obviously did not know what the term meant in the Hollywood parlance of the time. I can only imagine that Truffaut was subjectively comparing the film to other Hitchcock films. But according to the objective meaning of the term, Foreign Correspondent was in no way a “B” film; as well as having great artistic merit and being a critical and commercial success, it was one of the big-budget pictures of all time, loaded with production “values.” When books such as Truffaut’s are used uncritically as texts in film appreciation classes, the effects can be particularly regrettable. – Hitchcock Annual, Vol 7
Therefore, its fans will find plenty to savour in two other, more fearless wartime flag-wavers from Warner Bros. that are its direct antecedents. Confessions of a Nazi Spy also stars George Sanders and three other returning actors, while Espionage Agent stars McCrea in his most propagandistic role alongside three crossover actors and assorted other personnel. Notably, Martin Kosleck, who played Nazis and German army officers many times onscreen, appears in all three films, while James Hilton, British novelist (Lost Horizon, Knight Without Armour, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Random Harvest) and Hollywood screenwriter, provides additional dialogue for Espionage and Correspondent.
He Makes the Movies Move – Lupton A. Wilkinson, LA Times
Danish 1954 or 1967 re-release poster by K. Wenzel
On the radio
Shoot to kill: Charles Wagenheim takes deadly aim
Rather surprisingly, there’s only been one radio adaptation of the film to date and no screen remakes, which can be partly ascribed to it having an original script, unlike evergreen stage or literary works which spawn regular adaptations. Joel McCrea was originally billed to reprise his onscreen role but in the event it featured Joseph Cotten, recent star of Hitch’s fondest remembered of his own films, Shadow of a Doubt, and later the generally less well-regarded Under Capricorn.
In the comics
There are no remakes apart from the radio programme but there are two other iterations, with scant information on the first, other than it was created by comic artist Charles Raab and appears to have never been published. Can anyone confirm the existence of any art other than this original piece?
Comic strip art by Charles Raab
The second is unfortunately an unauthorised rehash. In the film, Joel McCrea plays self-reflexive crime reporter John Jones with the pen name “Huntley Haverstock”. Beginning in August 1941, exactly a year after the film’s release, Captain America Comics #5-13 (except #11) featured the exploits of intrepid reporter Jerry “Headline” Hunter, whose speciality was foiling dastardly Nazi plots. “Headline” Hunter, Foreign Correspondent – Stan Lee even shamelessly named his source – is widely acknowledged as being the comic writing icon’s first published creation but with no mention of the entire character and concept being stolen. That’s fan worship for you. Questions concerning true authorship continue to swirl around Lee’s most famous “creations”, so it looks like he established his modus operandi right from the off. You can read this ripped-off reporter’s adventures for free in the Captain America trade paperbacks 2-4.
The war years were understandably prime time for scores of similar characters in comics and every other media but my fave film series is available in a wonderful, region free set: “Glenda Farrell was a signature Warner Bros. 1930s star and she shone brightest as tough-talking reporter Torchy Blane, who always broke the case and got the story – if not her man – with a police detective always a crime-solving step behind her. This nine-movie, five-disc Torchy Blane DVD collection features Farrell in seven breezy capers, and Lola Lane and Jane Wyman as the nosy newswoman in the other two. All are Extra! Extra! Fun.”
The first appearance of Huntley Haverstock, sorry: “Headline” Hunter in Captain America Comics #5
Foreign Correspondent: Writing on a Classic; Collectors Guide, Part 2: Censorship and anti-Nazi films, 3: Home video
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This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
