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 A tiny bit dated - but great Hitchcock movie making Sep 01, 2010
I've been a Hitchcock fan forever so I don't know how I missed this one. Don't miss it.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Thrilling Jul 05, 2010
Foreign Correspondent is among the most thrilling movies Hollywood has ever made. If you love the classics, I believe you will love this movie.
Hitchcock Spy Classic! May 15, 2010
In 1940, just before America's involvement in World War II with the Germans, Hitchcock made one of the best spy movies I've seen, Foreign Correspondent. Even the Nazi's thought his film was great propaganda. Nominated but did not win the Academy Awards, still it is a fine film full of action, spies, pretty girls and surly Germans, murder and bombings galore.
The film starts off quietly enough. A major New York newspaper editor is sick of the quiet news coming out of Europe in 1939 (the story takes place before Hitler invaded Poland in Sept. 1939 for your history buffs) and wants a real correspondent out there to cover the story.
He picks Johnny, who is busy at his desk cutting out paper snowflakes. Thinking he is going to be fired, he confronts the editor and is about to walk out when Johnny is hired as a foreign correspondent. He is escorted by a Mr. Fisher, who of course has a lovely daughter, and is off to London and Amsterdam.
The film is full of intrigue: the car chases, a guy who disguises himself as a cameraman who blows someone away who is a foreign diplomat (or at least that's what we think at first).
The film is also full of suspicion and people believing they were betrayed when they were not, and dishonest people believed they were truthful. It's a favored theme in Hitchcock films and it's in spades here.
The plane crash scene near the end, the drowning innocents and the self-sacrifice was really quite endearing and brings tears -- yeah, really! The ending has one of those patriotic speeches that makes you want to jump in a boat and blow up a few U-Boats for Uncle Sam, though technically the USA did not declare war on Germany until the following year.
It's an interesting fact that London was actually being bombed when the film was released to English audiences. Live imitating art, it seems.
The cast and crew were not familiar with me. The hero is no Cary Grant but knows how to read a line or jump off a building.
Highly recommended, when Hollywood knew how to make movies. This is Hitchcock's second American film.
Cast & Crew include:
Joel McCrea ... John Jones
Laraine Day ... Carol Fisher
Herbert Marshall ... Stephen Fisher
George Sanders ... Ffolliott (ffollliott)
Albert Bassermann ... Van Meer (as Albert Basserman)
Robert Benchley ... Stebbins
Edmund Gwenn ... Rowley
Eduardo Ciannelli ... Mr. Krug (as Eduardo Cianelli)
Harry Davenport ... Mr. Powers
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
an oldie but a goodie May 03, 2010
Suspense and intrigue. Good acting and scenery. If you are a collector of Alfred Hitchcock films, this is a must. Not one of his best but excellent nonetheless. Becomes a little too patriotic in the end (for some) but consider the time and circumstance.
A fascinating film from Hitchcock's early Hollywood period Apr 04, 2010
Although David O. Selznick brought Alfred Hitchcock to the United States, they discovered that their personal styles conflicted mightily, and for the bulk of their seven-year contract Selznick he preferred to lend Hitchcock out for several years. So Selznick and Hitchcock actually ended up doing relatively little work with one another after REBECCA. For a fee, he would allow Hitchcock to make films at other studios. So while he was under contract with Selznick, who was based at MGM, he ended up making films with almost all of the Hollywood studios. This film for instance, was made at the Goldwyn studios but distributed by United Artists.
I love FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT even though I wouldn't rank it among his greatest films. But that this isn't among his fifteen best films shows how extraordinarily prolific and talented Hitchcock was. There are many wonderful scenes in the film, like the windmill scene. The plane crash at the end isn't a perfect scene (the idea of a airliner being shot down by a submarine is definitely a stretch). And I adore the cast, from Joel McCrea and Loraine day, to George Sanders and Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn, along with a deep cast of Hollywood character actors, like Robert Benchley and Harry Davenport. There are also some wonderful sets, like the recreation of European streets with a heavy rainfall.
One of the things that I don't care for is that Hitchcock did not yet have great control of the films. After ending his contract with David O. Selznick, he always proceeded as both his own producer and director. But for several years he had varying degrees of control over his films. During FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT there were still many trappings of typical Hollywood productions. The diegetic music, for instance, doesn't seem to do much work like music did in later Hitchcock films. It is mere ornamentation. Also, producer Walter Wanger was constantly interfering in the production by trying to update the script to correspond with the constantly changing situation in Europe (the film was shot during the summer of 1940). So, the film doesn't work as well as Hitchcock's best films. It feels like a collection of scenes that don't flow organically into one another. They are often great scenes, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Still, it makes for a fascinating film to watch. Hitchcock's use of the camera is always fascinating, and there are endless moments where you wonder how he did this or that.
I find the film interesting as well for the blocking for Herbert Marshall, who had only one leg and therefore had some difficulty walking smoothly. Most other directors (like Lubitsch) frequently placed Marshall behind desks or tables, or used doubles when showing him, for instance, running up stairs. Hitchcock, however, shows him walking in full body shots more than in any other role I can think of. You have to admire how well Marshall comports himself. You can see that he walks with a limp, but you would hardly guess that he was missing a leg. And he never is anything less than the very picture of elegance and grace. The one scene in which he had especial difficulty was when he was in the water when the plane crashed. Unable to swim, they build a special tank for him to stand in. Casting him as the villain in the film was a stroke of genius. Hitchcock, in fact, anticipated the James Bond films in almost always having exceptionally elegant and likable villains. Marshall's Fisher in this film, the country squire missing a finger in THE 39 STEPS, Claude Rains's Sebastian in NOTORIOUS, and James Mason's Vandamm all are the predecessors of Goldfinger and the other Bond villains.
The McGuffin in the film is secret clause known by Van Meer, the old diplomat played by Albert Basserman. Like all McGuffins, it doesn't carry the film, but just provides the excuse for the action.
The film ended on dialog that was written by superstar screenwriter Ben Hecht (the highest paid screenwriter of his era and one of the great script doctors in the history of Hollywood, paid huge amounts of money to clean up scripts, most often without credit [though he received credit for a staggering number of films as well]. The anti-isolationist, pro-Britain speech both was meant to remind viewers of the radio broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, who was creating his legend even as this film was being made, and was meant to reflect the crisis taking place in Great Britain, which was being bombarded by the Nazis. Hecht and Hitchcock would work together again. Hecht worked as a script doctor on LIFEBOAT and then wrote the screenplays for both SPELLBOUND and NOTORIOUS. The latter is, in fact, one of the best scripts of his illustrious career.
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