- Revisiting contemporary and modern critical appreciation
- Topical spy thriller followed hot on the heels of hit Rebecca
- Well-meaning but misguided message not loved by everyone
- Western star Joel McCrea did fine job but was happier on a horse
- Still-impressive special effects by a pioneer production designer
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
US Warner Bros. LaserDisc
An espionage ring finds a “Hitch” in its best-laid plans
The wind blows one way… but the windmill turns another. To a group of Fifth Columnists, it’s a signal. It’s also a signal for someone not supposed to be there. It confirms newspaperman Huntley Haverstock’s hunch that he’s stumbled across the biggest story in prewar Europe.
That memorable scene is just one highlight of Alfred Hitchcock’s thrill-packed Foreign Correspondent, a delectable showcase of the director’s best cinematic tricks. For the first time, the gifted director pulled out all the stops, combining his unique vision with the kind of grandly scaled sets that would figure largely in Saboteur, Rear Window, North by Northwest and more. The 80-foot windmill, a 10-acre facsimile of Amsterdam Square and an airship with a 120-foot wingspan are some of the massive sets the Master of Suspense used to create this whirlwind spy yarn.
Joel McCrea (as Haverstock), Laraine Day. Herbert Marshall and George Sanders headline this nominee for six 1940 Academy Awards, including Best Picture (won by Hitchcock’s other landmark film that year: Rebecca). One nomination (Best Supporting Actor) went to Albert Basserman [né Bassermann], a German refugee whose knowledge of the English language was so shaky he learned his lines phonetically. Of course, there’s a star behind the camera too: the director whose knowledge of the language of film made him, according to Ephraim Katz writing in The Film Encyclopedia, “the grandest wizard of cinema magic the screen has ever known.” Foreign Correspondent is prime Alfred Hitchcock and grants you a press pass to breathless excitement. – US Warner LaserDisc (1991) LDDb
Life: Movie of the Week | Movie Locations
Foreign Correspondent: Blood, thunder and Hitchcock
A Scoop in War Thrills: A Reporter Outwits the Nazis in Foreign Correspondent
Vincent Sheean’s autobiography, Personal History, tells how an introspective young foreign correspondent loses his first job in Europe because he lingered too long at dinner. Later, he stands by numb with grief while his feminine companion dies as a result of overzeal in the Communist cause. In the end, he deserts his profession because he “no longer felt able to maintain the hard-boiled and efficient attitude of a true journalist towards the horrors created by political injustice.”
Walter Wanger’s Foreign Correspondent shows how an extroverted young New York police reporter bags a scoop of international proportions on his first assignment abroad. He gets the girl, too, by overcoming nothing more formidable than the lady’s instinctive coyness. As the film ends, the viewer is convinced that the hero will stride to one journalistic triumph after another, dragging his bride along over the dusty news beats of the world. Although Foreign Correspondent originally was supposed to be based on “Personal History,” the rotund Britisher Alfred Hitchcock has scuttled every vestige of the book and its author with as spine-tingling and hair-raising a melodrama as might be found in the censor-muddiedLINK waters of the European struggle. It is the story of every wandering journalist from Xenophon, through Richard Harding Davis, to the present generation of microphone reporters.
Dispatched to London by his editor to report the “facts” of the brewing war without benefit of protocol, Huntley Haverstock—born Johnny Jones—is plopped squarely in the middle of an espionage intrigue and proceeds to block it with true American directness. With the help of a British colleague, he solves the fake assassination of a Dutch statesman and rescues him from his Nazis kidnapers, foils several attacks on his own life, unmasks a high-placed German spy, and is shot down by a Nazi destroyer in mid-Atlantic while flying back to America but gets the story through to his newspaper by a ruse. In the midst of these adventures, he has time to kindle the love light in the eyes of Carol Fisher, pacifist daughter of a pacifist leader, and nurse it along toward the inevitable orange blossoms.
As Huntley Haverstock, Joel McCrea proves to be a likable and credible citizen in the leading role. Laraine Day gets by nicely in her most ambitious part to date as Carol Fisher. Herbert Marshall appears to be thoroughly miscast as the big peace man who turns out to be something more than that. Robert Benchley carries off the acting honors as a broken-down American journalist in London—by acting himself. George Sanders, Albert Basserman, and Eduardo Ciannelli add much to the film. And despite occasional tedium; the direction of Hitchcock has brightened the shield he earned with Rebecca. – Newsweek
Hollywood: Personal History of a Foreign Correspondent, She’s an “Oscar” Menace
Foreign Correspondent reaches the very height of popular entertainment. It may not be a great picture but it is far away above other films making bow to the public in London. British director Alfred Hitchcock—remember his The Lady Vanishes—has taught Hollywood something in the way of wit, topicality, and suspense. He gives us a hard hammering melodrama beaten out on the anvils of the moment. He has established a new star in Laraine Day, the toast of foreign correspondents.
Quick Startability
All Hitchcock’s films have quick startability. Five minutes after Foreign Correspondent’s start we know—
That Huntley Haverstock (Joel McCrea), American war correspondent, is in London sleuthing a big peace treaty plot. Europe is clattering over the edge of war.
That a Dutch statesman. Van Meer, is behind the peace offensive and risking torture and death from his war-mongering enemies.
That a strange Mr. Fisher (Herbert Marshall) is mixed up in a racket calling itself an international peace society. It is a cover for plotting. intrigue, and war-making.
That his daughter (Laraine Day) is entangled in this racket and- rapidly falling in love with McCrea.
That a violent clash is imminent between Fisher on the one hand and Van Meer, the newsman, and the girl on the other.
From London to Amsterdam
Such is the set-up. It is not always easy to follow. It dashes from London to Amsterdam, twists and coils through a maze of spying, shooting, double-crossing, kidnapping, and murder to the climax of the Clipper (with nearly the whole cast on board) crashing in the Atlantic when hit by the guns of a German warship. A thriller of the best, with a mounting and terrific interest, a very able cast, big effects, and the true- to-life detail which always makes a Hitchcock film arresting.
Though made before the air-blitz on London the raid scene on the capital is amazingly accurate. Joel McCrea is invited by the B.B.C. to broadcast his impressions of the war in the United States. Soon after he starts to talk the sirens sound. Bombs begin to fall and A.A. guns open fire. “I can’t read the rest of the speech,” says McCrea at the mike, “because the lights have just gone out, so I’ll just talk off the cuff.”
Searchlights & Gunfire
The glare of the searchlights and the flashes of gunfire can be seen through the studio window. The noise booms and bangs all the harder. It’s a strong, stirring finish that excites one to applause:
“I can’t read the rest of the speech I had, because the lights have gone out, so I’ll just have to talk off the cuff. All that noise you hear isn’t static — it’s death, coming to London. Yes, they’re coming here now. You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes. Don’t tune me out, hang on a while — this is a big story, and you’re part of it. It’s too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come… it’s as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America. Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them. Hello, America, hang on to your lights: they’re the only lights left in the world!” – The Straits Times
1940 reviews: DNL, NY Times, Times, Variety | new: Expression, Globe, Guardian, Livius
During production, Hitch became aware that German bombing raids on Britain were imminent, so brought in uncredited screenwriter Ben Hecht to write a new epilogue, replacing the original of the leads recounting the film’s events on an aeroplane flight back across the Atlantic. Instead, they give the radio broadcast in London just as the first air raid begins. Likewise, the opening crawl is similarly stirring:
“To those intrepid ones who went across the seas to be the eyes and ears of America….
To those forthright ones who early saw the clouds of war while many of us at home were seeing rainbows….
To those clear-headed ones who now stand like recording angels among the dead and dying….
To the Foreign Correspondents — this motion picture is dedicated.”
However, not everyone appreciated the film’s well-meaning message; in fact, quite the opposite as it was seen to be US-centric; patronising and; worst of all, dangerously misleading. A glowing review in Documentary News Letter drew swift rebuke from many notable British filmmakers and critics, who pointed out that other films painted a far truer picture of the resolute, bloodied but unbowed Brit spirit, such as the short, London Can Take It! It’s most telling that Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels admired Foreign Correspondent, calling it “a masterpiece of propaganda, a first-class production which no doubt will make a certain impression upon the broad masses of the people in enemy countries.” Perhaps just not in the way intended.
Those disapproving included Hitch’s former friend and mentor Michael Balcon, who had already unfairly attacked him for “abandoning” England in March 1939, in her hour of need on the eve of WWII. But Hitch’s entire 1930s career was building towards a move to Hollywood. He accepted an offer to work for producer David O. Selznick in December 1936 and travelled with his family to America twice, in August 1937 and June 1938, actually signing his contract during the latter visit, before returning home briefly to make Jamaica Inn. Moreover, Hitch returned during the war to make Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, and contribute to various other projects, some which are still being uncovered.
Hitchcock at War/orig – David Parkinson
Joel McCrea: “I never get away from the ranch thing. When I started in pictures, they bought me a pair of tails. But I was always more at home when I was in a Western because of the horse. Hitchcock and screenwriter Ben Hecht explained that they cast me because they wanted a Johnny Jones who didn’t know what was going on in the world. For the movie, Alfred took off his tie and gave it to me to wear. He asked me each day to bring some fresh eggs and fresh-churned butter from my ranch. He’d fall asleep at dinner — politely, never snoring — then wake up and say, ‘Did I miss anything?’” McCrea remembers a scene in which he kept tripping on steps in his size 12 shoes. “Hitchcock said, ‘Joel comes down the stairs like an elongated bag.’ I told him, ‘I do miss my horse.’” – 1982 interview/edit
- Joel McCrea: Riding the High Country/A Film History (1992/2013) – Tony Thomas
Another time, McCrea said: “He had a habit of drinking champagne for lunch and I remember one day after lunch we shot a boring scene with me just standing there talking. After it was over I expected to hear him call ‘cut’, but I looked over and he was sleeping, snoring with his lips sticking out. I called for the cut, he woke up and asked if the scene was good. I said ‘The best in the picture.’ and he said, ‘Print it.'”
When interviewed by Dick Cavett in 1972, Hitch related how Gary Cooper later regretted turning down McCrea’s role, and discussed the complexities of shooting the plane crash scene – in which studio lights are briefly visible. This GIF is lifted from the “Visual Effects in Foreign Correspondent” featurette on US and German restored releases.
Not a silent movie, but in Foreign Correspondent (1940) Alfred Hitchcock made brilliant use of rear-projection to film a plane crash. Footage of a stunt plane diving towards the ocean was projected on a rice paper screen, then water was released, which smashed through the paper pic.twitter.com/mFIRpf4Fns
— Silent Movie GIFs (@silentmoviegifs) August 13, 2019
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.
