Foreign Correspondent is a 1940 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film starred Joel McCrea and Laraine Day, and is set shortly before the start of World War II.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Production Company: Walter Wanger Productions
Distributor: United Artists
Cast: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman, Robert Benchley
US Box Office: Unknown
Film Format: Black & White
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: August 16, 1940
Plot Summary: Shortly before the start of World War II, American journalist John Jones (Joel McCrea) is sent to Europe to interview Dutch diplomat Van Meer (Albert Basserman) about whether he believes that war is inevitable. Jones witnesses the seeming assassination of Van Meer in the Netherlands, only to discover that he is actually held being held captive by enemy agents who want the information that Van Meer knows. Jones gets caught in the middle of a vast conspiracy with the only people who believe him being Scott ffolliott (George Sanders)- a British journalist, and Carol Fisher (Laraine Day)- the daughter of Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall)- the leader of a large pacifist movement in Europe.
Production: In 1935, Hollywood producer Walter Wanger bought the rights to Personal History, a memoir written by journalist Vincent Sheehan, with the intent of adapting it into a film. Wanger was unhappy with early drafts for script, so he decided to largely throw out the plot of the memoir in favor of a fictional story. After five years, Wanger was satisfied with the progress made on the script, and decided to begin production. World War II had begun in Europe by this time, so the script was set during the prelude leading up to the conflict. Wanger decided that he wanted British thriller director Alfred Hitchcock to direct the film. Hitchcock was working in America and was under contract with David O. Selznick at the time, so Selznick agreed to loan Hitchcock out to Wanger. Hitchcock didn’t like having to work under Selznick’s close scrutiny and was happy to direct a film with someone else in a less strict environment.
Gary Cooper was Hitchcock’s first choice for the role of role of Johnny Jones, but Cooper was not interested in starring in a thriller and turned the part down, so Hitchcock gave the role to Joel McCrea instead. McCrea had recently starred in Cecil B DeMille’s epic western film Union Pacific (1939). Joan Fontaine was Hitchcock’s first choice for the role of Carol, but she was under contract with Selznick and he refused to loan her out to Wanger for the film. Laraine Day was given the part instead. She was largely unknown at the time, though she had appeared in several films in the Dr. Kildare series.
Though originally titled Personal History, the name of the film was changed to Foreign Correspondent as it no longer resembled Sheehan’s memoir. Foreign Correspondent began filming on March 18, 1940 and the primary shooting went on until the end of May. The film was mainly shot at Samuel Goldwyn Studio in Hollywood. Some on location shooting was done in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. Hitchcock frequently clashed with Wanger during production. Wanger wanted the script to constantly be re-written to accommodate any new changes to the situation in Europe. Hitchcock hated having to shoot a film before the script was finalized and he knew that even if the film managed up to date throughout shooting, it would be out-of-date by the time it released.
One of the most well-known sequences in Foreign Correspondent is the scene in which a plane carrying most of the main characters is shot down by a German destroyer and it lands in the Atlantic Ocean. The plane’s crash landing was designed by William Cameron Menzies. To create the crash shots, Hitchcock and Menzies had footage filmed from an actual stunt plane diving into the ocean projected onto rice paper on the windshield of the cockpit set. A chute connected to a water tank was located right behind the rice paper. Water broke through the rice paper at the right moment to simulate the plane landing in the ocean.
After shooting on Foreign Correspondent wrapped, Hitchcock went on a trip back to England. Hitchcock returned back to California in early July, knowing that the Germans were going to start bombing London at any time, and decided to change the ending of the film to reflect this. Ben Hecht was called in to write a new ending for the film, and Hitchcock quickly shot the new scene with McCrea and Day on July 5. The German strategic bombing of London began before Foreign Correspondent released.
Fun Facts and Trivia: As with most of his films, Alfred Hitchcock makes a cameo appearance in Foreign Correspondent. Hitchcock appears early in the movie walking by Jones’ hotel while reading a newspaper. German actor Albert Basserman (Van Meer) spoke virtually no English at the time, so he had to learn his lines phonetically. Basserman’s line delivery in the role is fitting for the part given that English is not the character’s native language. Stebbins was played by well-known American writer and humorist Robert Benchley, Hitchcock allowed Benchley to write his own lines, so the character’s dialogue reflected Benchley’s own wry sense of humor. During the filming of the famous crash scene, a special tub within the larger studio water tank had to be built for Herbert Marshall. Marshall couldn’t swim because he had lost a leg in combat during World War I (he used a prosthetic leg to walk and his injury is not noticeable in the film).
Reception: Foreign Correspondent was released in the United States on August 16, 1940. The film was released on October 11th of that year in the United Kingdom. Foreign Correspondent preformed well in the UK where it was the second highest grossing film of the year, only being beat by Hitchcock’s Rebecca. The film was not nearly as successful in the United States, where it only performed about as well as typical B-movie thrillers of the time. Due to its high budget Foreign Correspondent lost just under $400,000, and is one of the few Hitchcock films to have not made a profit at the box office. In 1946 Joel McCrea reprised his role in a 30-minute adaptation of the film for the radio program Academy Award Theater.
Foreign Correspondent received generally positive reviews from critics at the time of its release. The critics at Variety gave the film a positive review, they thought that the international political intrigue related to the war in Europe made it more interesting than average thriller. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave Foreign Correspondent a perfect score. He thought that the film bore the “unmistakable stamp” of Hitchcock’s direction style and he complimented the film for packing in, “as much romantic action, melodramatic hullabaloo, comical diversion and illusion of momentous consequence as the liveliest imagination could conceive” in one film. Foreign Correspondent appeared on the yearly top ten best lists of both Film Daily and the National Board of Reviews.
In retrospect, Foreign Correspondent has also received a mostly positive response from critics. In a positive review for the Chicago Reader Dave Kehr wrote that Foreign Correspondent was enjoyable, but was only a “second-rate effort” by Hitchcock standards. Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress complimented the film for being an efficient and streamlined production, and thought that it was a good example of the ideal studio film. In 2001, Foreign Correspondent was one of 400 films nominated by the American Film Institute for their list of the most thrilling American films of all time.
Oscars: Foreign Correspondent was nominated for six Oscars at the 13th Academy Awards ceremony: Best Picture (Walter Wanger), Best Supporting Actor (Albert Basserman), Best Original Screenplay (Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison), Best Cinematography (Rudolph Mate), Best Art Direction (Alexander Golitzen), and Best Special Effects (Paul Eagler for photographic effects and Thomas T Moulton for sound effects). Foreign Correspondent didn’t win any of the Oscars it was nominated for. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca was nominated for eleven Oscars that same year and it competed with Foreign Correspondent in several categories. Rebecca won Best Picture and Best Cinematography over Foreign Correspondent. Neither film received the awards for Best Special Effects and Best Art Direction.
Why You Should See It: Foreign Correspondent is a good thriller film. As usual, Hitchcock does a great job creating suspense in the film. I think that the scene where Jones is spying on the enemy agents at the Windmill, and the scene where Rowley (Edmund Gwenn) attempts to kill Jones in the cathedral, are both great examples of the Hitchcock’s use of suspense in Foreign Correspondent. Joel McCrea and Laraine Day are both good in their lead roles. Albert Basserman is quite memorable in his supporting performance as Van Meer, and deserved his Academy Award nomination. Composer Alfred Newman also deserved his Academy Award nomination. Newman’s use of music (and deliberate lack-there-of in some scenes) is outstanding and just adds to the film’s tension. One main criticism that I have of Foreign Correspondent is that some scenes are too heavy-handed in trying to express a message (convincing America to declare war on Germany). This is especially noticeable in the final scene of the film.