Censorship and partners in war crime
- Alfred Newman’s thrilling score supplemented by several diegetic pieces of music
- For decades, many countries only released post-war, politically censored versions
- Provoking: It was at forefront of Hollywood’s earnest anti-Nazi propaganda drive
- Profiling two other hard-hitting movies awakening audiences to the fascist threat
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
Due to the wartime paper shortage, the top panel of this UK three sheet poster was printed on the verso of another, which shows through. In case you’re wondering, it’s Lady from Nowhere (1936), starring Mary Astor. Here’s the flipped top panel. Clever me! I can’t find the whole thing but strongly suspect it resembled the US one sheet.
Contents
- Soundtrack
- Edited dispatches
- Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)
- Espionage Agent (1939)
- Related articles
Soundtrack
Correspondent’s composing duties fell to scoring titan Alfred Newman, a forty three-time Oscar nominee and nine-time winner, who was fresh off successes such as the previous year’s Wuthering Heights and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Strangely, there don’t appear to have ever been any re-recordings or official soundtrack releases of his fine score. A CD/MP3 bootleg, Alfred Hitchcock: The Classic Soundtrack Collection, marks its sole appearance on disc so far, via a one-minute snippet lifted directly from the film’s opening credits. It’s from UK-based thieves Enlightenment Records, a sub-label of long-term prolific pirates Chrome Dreams, who believe, like so many others, that all of Hitch’s films and scores are free for the taking despite every one of them being fully copyrighted worldwide. An extended appraisal of Newman’s score appears in this detailed survey of Hitch’s use of music throughout his talkie career, and a Criterion essay and non-disc featurette:
- Hitchcock’s Music (2006) – Jack Sullivan | interview, podcast, video | review/#2/#3/#4
- Foreign Correspondent: Spies face the music/Musical Motifs – Jeff Smith
Several pieces of older music are heard in the background during the film: “Rule, Britannia!” (1740), “The Star Spangled Banner” (1814) and “Rosen aus dem Süden (Roses from the South) Op. 388” (1880) by Johann Strauss II – he of Waltzes from Vienna fame. But one contemporary piece is actually played by the kidnappers while interrogating Van Meer, played by Bassermann.
It’s the B-side of the biggest selling US record of 1938, “I Got a Guy”/”Harlem Congo”, by bandleader-drummer Chick Webb and His Orchestra. A noted workaholic, Webb suffered ill health all his life and died tragically young. He’s perhaps best known nowadays for having discovered the teenaged Ella Fitzgerald, featuring her as his vocalist and elevating her to stardom. Webb and his band reputedly shone brightest in the live arena, where they regularly blew the era’s other leading swing bands off the stage in head-to-head contests. Unfortunately, no live recordings survive but there are over a hundred studio sides, most of which are gathered in Webb’s most comprehensive compilations:
- Proper 4-CD Stomping at the Savoy (2006)
- Mosaic 8-CD Complete Chick Webb & Ella Fitzgerald Decca Sessions/site (2013) Discogs/eBay | review
- Flat Five MP3 96 Greatest Jazz Hits (2015)
Edited dispatches
↑ Clip from Criterion’s “Hollywood Propaganda and World War II” featurette with Mark Harris, author of Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War (2015), also adapted as a Netflix series
With war looming and its prescient subject matter, Hitch faced the usual battles and more in bringing his vision to the screen; we must remember that when critiquing his films made decades ago from the comfort of our 21st century armchairs, oftentimes the Master himself was only too aware of any perceived shortcomings. But despite the genius and talent displayed by Hitch and his collaborators, their efforts are still products of their time. The battles he fought and subsequent compromises wrought with censors, producers and studios are detailed in John Billheimer’s brilliant, unique book. In Correspondent’s case, a whole chapter is dedicated to describing the milieu that shaped Hitch’s onscreen entreaty for America to join the war effort. Abstract:
This chapter examines the changes in the source material, script, and film of Foreign Correspondent wrought by the Production Code censors. The original source material was a memoir, Personal History (1935), by [war correspondent] Vincent Sheean, which was purchased by producer Walter Wanger. The Production Code office advised Wanger that the property would be unsuitable for filming, since it depicted incidents that might offend Nazi Germany and thus would violate the Neutrality Act. Wanger took the idea of a foreign correspondent, and little else, from the Sheean book and created an espionage thriller in which the country served by the villainous spies is unnamed. Alfred Hitchcock was hired on loan-out from Selznick, and before the film was completed, war had broken out in Europe. Siding with Britain, screenwriter Ben Hecht wrote a final scene in which star Joel McCrea pleaded in a radio broadcast for American involvement in the war effort.
1948 first French post-war release poster; 1948 grande
Naturally, Correspondent faced further censorship outside of the States and several different edits of the film further tailored it for local markets, with no input whatsoever from Hitch or his team. Like various other Hitchcocks, for many years they were the only way those audiences got to see it. However, thanks to the increasing ubiquity of complete restorations, those previous versions are rapidly becoming ever-more obscure artefacts.
- Hitchcock and the Censors – Leonard J. Leff
- Hitchcock: Censorship Saboteur/Censored! – Brian Trenchard-Smith
- Hitchcock and the Censors (2019) – John Billheimer | interview/#2/#3/#4 | review
Many British and American films were denied release in various countries until after the war and Foreign Correspondent proved no exception. But its topical storyline still caused particular problems, so for the initial 1948 French outing its original 120 minutes were edited down to 107. Now retitled Correspondant 17, translated inserts replaced all credits and other onscreen text, then it was none too faithfully dubbed (alt) to further smooth any remaining political rough edges and new gaps in continuity. This version was later released at least three times on VHS and a much-reissued DVD.
Unsurprisingly, the film suffered even greater indignities in Germany, where it was delayed indefinitely. However, Constantin Film finally opted to distribute it in West Germany in December 1961, following the huge worldwide success of Psycho, and with publicity materials clearly influenced by Hitch’s slasher. But first, Correspondent was chopped to 98 minutes and given another censorious dub (alt), especially watering down the characterisation of the Nazis.
Newman’s score was also replaced with jazzy music in the style of the then popular Edgar Wallace Krimi film adaptations; a similar fate befell Saboteur, which although uncensored was accorded a new, specially composed score on its belated German release. Lastly, shorn of its most contentious references, including dropping the final radio address, Correspondent was retitled Mord (Murder, not to be confused with the earlier Hitchcock film of the same name). The same version also winged its way over the border to Austria for the first time the following month.
German 1961 release poster
Illustrierte Film-Bühne, Nr. 5947
In 1986, ZDF TV finally aired the original full length version with a brand new, faithful dub (alt) over the original score and sound effects, under its correct, directly-translated title Der Auslandskorrespondent. The censored version has never been officially released on home video; despite being simply titled Mord, the only German VHS to date (Kinowelt, 1995) contains the full length/1986 dub version. However, for recognition its original title now usually prefixes the correct one: Mord – Der Auslandskorrespondent.
In Spain, the film wasn’t released until November 1944 and edited by around five minutes, although there are reports of extant prints as short as 82 minutes. As with the likes of many classics, such as Nosferatu and other Hitchcocks surviving in variant forms, in an ideal world they would all be available on home video to carefully study and contrast. Though most are created after the fact and with little or no input from the original filmmakers, they’re still the way millions came to know and love these films, and are now an important, indelible part of their history.
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)
Pulling no punches: neither the film nor its publicity held back in their exhortations to fight the Nazis, as this US lobby card aptly demonstrates. (Full set, scene set, style B; one sheet poster/orig; pressbook)
Confessions of a Nazi Spy – AFI | Hitler in Hollywood – David Denby
A historical call to vigilance in the months before World War II, named 1939’s Best Film by the National Board of Review.
In the wake of a trial that convicted four Nazi agents of spying against the U.S., Warner Bros. became the first Hollywood studio to fire a salvo at Hitler’s Germany. Months before World War II erupted, it released this thriller based on revelations that emerged from the trial and other real-life sources. [A series of irresponsible newspaper articles by inept, corrupt FBI agent Leon G. Turrou.] The story is a brisk connect-the-dots tale that ties German-American Bund operatives (Francis Lederer, George Sanders and Paul Lukas among others) to Berlin. Chief among those connecting the dots: FBI Agent Edward Renard (Edward G. Robinson). The drama wasn’t limited to the screen. Production personnel received threats and violence erupted at some screenings. Directed with hard-hitting verve by Anatole Litvak, Confessions of a Nazi Spy struck a nerve in its era. It remains a milestone of filmmaking commitment today. – US DVD
- US: Warner DVD-R (2010) – NTSC, region 0; plays anywhere
- Warner BD (2023) – exclusive 4k restoration
- Prime Video
Italy: Sinister Films DVD– bootleg
Clip/#2/#3/#4 | TCM | ARTE | Confusions of a Nutzy Spy (1943 )
- Celluloid Soldiers: The Warner Bros. Campaign Against Nazism (1999) – Michael E. Birdwell
- Anti-Nazi Sentiment in Film: Confessions of a Nazi Spy and the German-American Bund – Eric J. Sandeen
“Mata who?” Lya Lys in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (another)
- Confessions of a Nazi Spy: Warner Bros., Anti-Fascism and the Politicization of Hollywood – Steven J. Ross
- Warners’ War: Politics, Pop Culture & Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood/print (2004) – ed. Martin Kaplan and Johanna Blakley
Espionage Agent (1939)
Jeffrey Lynn, Marshall and McCrea are shooting from the hip in this publicity still (US three sheet poster, one sheet/textless, herald, pressbook)
Career man vs. Nazi spies!
Warner Bros. continued its one-studio war against Hitler and his minions by following the sensational Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) with this crackling dramatic thriller starring Joel McCrea and new discovery Brenda Marshall (still). McCrea plays U.S. State Department diplomat Barry Corvall, who becomes a one-man counterspy agency in the dawning days of World War II. After Barry discovers that his new bride, refugee Brenda Ballard (Marshall), has been coerced into acting as an agent for Nazi Germany, he is expelled from the Foreign Service. Recruited by an Assistant Secretary of State, Barry goes undercover as a disgraced ex-diplomat, besotted by his Mata Hari wife. Journeying to Geneva, Barry and Brenda put themselves in harm’s way in a desperate bid to uncover the secrets of the Nazi spy ring operating inside the United States. While Brenda continues to pose as a spy, Barry finds the proof he needs. This action-romance pulls no punches. – US DVD
- US: Warner DVD-R (2018) – NTSC, region 0
Foreign Correspondent: Writing on a Classic; Collectors Guide, Part 2: Censorship and anti-Nazi films, 3: Home video
Related articles
This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
