Fabulous Films of the 1940s Blogathon: Foreign Correspondent (1940)

This essay is Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s contribution to the Fabulous Films of the 1940s Blogathon, hosted this week (February 17-22) by members of The Classic Movie Blog Association.  For participating blogs and the films discussed, click here for more information.  Oh, and for those of you who’ve not seen the movie I’ll discuss…be forewarned there are spoilers.

Frequent visitors to Thrilling Days of Yesteryear are no doubt aware that my viewing of offerings on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ has been somewhat curtailed since my parents and I decided to rent a house together: the ‘rents, as they are affectionately known, don’t quite share my classic movie mania—preferring to while away their hours in front of the TV watching sporting events or “reality” programming featuring very unpleasant individuals conversing with one another in language that is frequently bleeped for cable.  But on occasion, particularly when it’s their bedtime, I am able to steal out into the living room and turn on TCM…since the living room TV is the only set that gets Turner Classic Movies.

It’s been rough this past month, campers.  The channel is hosting its annual 31 Days of Oscar event, and many of the films on the schedule I have no desire to ever watch.  Thursday night (February 14) is a case in point: I had just settled into Count Comfy von Chair around 10 pm and used the remote to access TCM…only to find Gone with the Wind (1939) already in progress.  I have seen GWTW only one time (I agreed in a moment of weakness to watch it with a lady friend of mine, who was cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs about the film) and have no desire to sit through it again because at this point in my life I simply do not have 3 hours and 42 minutes at my disposal to hand out freely.

I was going to be up for a while, so I stuck around for the movie that came on afterward—Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940).  (Apparently it was David O. Selznick night.)  I’d already seen Rebecca as well…though in its defense, the movie doesn’t fill me with nearly the amount of revulsion as GWTW (it’s shorter, for one thing).  But as I watched Rebecca, I couldn’t help but feel that I would much rather be watching (something I rectified for this blogathon) the other Hitchcock film that was nominated for Best Picture that same year (and five additional categories as well): Foreign Correspondent (1940).

The year is 1939, with the world on the brink of the Second World War.  Powers (Harry Davenport), the dyspeptic editor of The New York Globe, is frustrated by the lack of information coming out of the European theater, and is disgusted that the paper’s foreign correspondent, the alcoholic Stebbins (Robert Benchley), cables nothing but news of crop failures.  Powers’ idea is to assign a crime journalist to cover Europe, and offers a beat reporter named Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) the assignment.  “Give me an expense account and I’ll cover anything,” responds Jones—though he admits he’ll have to bone up on the crisis first.  Powers tells him to never mind—he wants a fresh perspective on the reporting, and after introducing Jones to Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall), the head of an organization known as the Universal Peace Party, sends Jones on his way…but not before giving Jones a new identity in “Huntley Haverstock.”  “’Jones’ will only handicap you,” explains Powers, apparently unaware that “Huntley Haverstock” doesn’t exactly come trippingly off the tongue.

Arriving in London, Jones meets correspondent Stebbins…and also makes the acquaintance of Dutch diplomat Van Meer (Albert Bassermann), with whom he shares a taxi as both men are on their way to an event sponsored by Fisher’s Universal Peace Party.  Jones is also introduced to Fisher’s daughter Carol (Laraine Day)—though he’s not aware of the father-daughter relationship at their first meet.  Instead, Jones angers Carol by playing the “ugly American,” criticizing their group as being run by “well-meaning amateurs.”  Johnny only learns that Carol is Fisher’s daughter when she must speak in place of Van Meer, who has sent his regrets at having been called away at the last moment.

Jones’ next assignment sends him to Amsterdam to be present at a political conference where Fisher and Van Meer will also be attending.  In fact, Johnny spots Van Meer coming up the stairs outside the building and greets him…but the diplomat doesn’t seem to recognize Johnny or remember that they shared a cab previously in London.  A photographer asks to take Van Meer’s picture, and when the diplomat acquiesces the shutterbug pulls out a concealed gun and shoots Van Meer in the face.  As the assassin makes his escape through a sea of umbrellas, Jones gives chase…and lucks into finding a car to go after the fleeing killer, with Carol as passenger and a fellow newspaperman, Scott ffoilliott (George Sanders) at the wheel.

The trail of the assassin leads to a windmill, and while Scott and Carol go off in search of the police, Johnny investigates inside…and finds Van Meer very much alive and held hostage in an upstairs room.  Van Meer reveals that his assassination was faked because the spies who are holding him captive want to spirit him away and extract a vital piece of information from him.  Jones manages to escape before the villains detect his presence, but by the time Carol and Scott return with the police, the miscreants have disappeared save for a hobo (Martin Kosleck) who says he’s been sleeping inside the windmill all day and saw no one that matches Johnny’s description.

Back in his hotel room, Jones receives a visit from two men who claim to be policemen…but Johnny quickly deduces that they’re working for the people who put the snatch on Van Meer.  He’s able to elude them with the help from a reluctant Carol; the two of them manage to board a ship back to England in the nick of time and during their trip reveal their love for one another.  Carol and Johnny then go to her father’s home to inform him about Van Meer…but Jones recognizes a guest of Fisher’s—introduced as Krug (Eduardo Ciannelli)—as one of the spies from the windmill.  Fisher tells Johnny he’ll handle the situation…and that’s when we learn that Fisher is working in tandem with the spies.  Krug suggests that Fisher employ a thug named Rowley (Edmund Gwenn) to be bodyguard for Johnny—though Rowley’s intent will really be to silence the reporter permanently.  Rowley’s assassination attempt fails when the “bodyguard” falls to his death from atop the tower of Westminster Cathedral.

Nothing ever happens in a Hitchcock film by accident.  As Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) makes his escape from the spies at the windmill, a wooden beam and several markings form a crude caricature of Hitler, as you can see in the space to McCrea's right.

Johnny now knows that Fisher is not whom he claims to be—something that ffoilliott has also been aware of for some time, and Scott suggests they pool their resources to find Van Meer’s whereabouts and expose Fisher by pretending to “kidnap” Carol.  (In actuality, the two men talk her into taking Johnny on a trip to Cambridge.)  Scott’s blackmail attempt fails when Carol returns home unexpectedly, but he’s able to trail Fisher to where the spies are holding Van Meer and has left word with Stebbins to have Johnny follow him when he returns.

The spies are torturing Van Meer to reveal a secret clause from a treaty signed by Holland and Belgium—something Scott is forced to witness when he is captured at gunpoint by underlings working with the spies.  Scott is able to distract the spies before Van Meer can spill the beans, and as Johnny and Stebbins arrive on the scene Fisher and the rest of the spies manage to escape.  Van Meer is alive but in a coma, and he is taken to a hospital while Jones and ffoilliott book passage on a plane that both Fisher are taking to America.

On the plane, ffoilliott gets word that the authorities will be waiting to pick Fisher up once the aircraft lands because Van Meer has regained consciousness and explained the situation to the authorities.  Carol has since learned the truth about her father, but vows to stick by him despite his activities…and Johnny, desperately in love with Carol, is reluctant to see her father arrested because that might put a damper on the wedding and all.  Fortunately for Fisher, he’ll go out a hero despite being a rat—the plane is strafed by a German destroyer, and in order to save the survivors from sinking in the drink he sacrifices himself by jumping off the plane’s wing so that the others may live.  The surviving passengers are picked up by an American ship, the Mohican, and despite orders from the captain (Emory Parnell) Johnny is able to give the story to Powers at the Globe through a bit of chicanery (aided and abetted by ffoilliott).  The film ends with an epilogue in which Johnny and Carol broadcast a patriotic speech to U.S. audiences from a London studio as the city is being shelled by the Germans.

The old maxim of “too many cooks spoil the soup” does not apply to Foreign Correspondent—who employed a passel of scribes to work on the constantly evolving screenplay.  Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison were credited with the final result (and received an Academy Award nomination for their efforts) with additional dialogue by James Hilton and Robert Benchley—but Harold Clurman, John Howard Lawson, John Lee Mahin, Richard Maibaum and Budd Schulberg also contributed to the script, which was based on the memoir Personal History, written by Vincent Sheean.  The final radio studio sequence was written by Ben Hecht and grafted onto the production at the last minute, influenced by Hitchcock’s return from London in July of 1940—where he reported that Germany had plans to bomb the city at any time.  At a time when the major studios were reluctant to tackle the subject of the war in Europe for fear of cheesing off foreign movie markets this last sequence was pretty daring stuff (though it was an independent production financed by Walter Wanger and released through United Artists).

Hitchcock didn’t particularly get along with Wanger, but working on Foreign Correspondent was a breeze compared to his legendary battles with Selznick.  He was fortunate in that the notoriously finicky producer pretty much stayed out of his hair during Hitch’s work on Rebecca (since Selznick was distracted by GWTW) but by the time Correspondent went into production the Master of Suspense was already receiving Selznick’s infamous memos.  Selznick may have been willing to loan out Hitchcock to Wanger but he said no to Sir Alfred when the director wanted Joan Fontaine for the female lead, so Hitch had to make do with Laraine Day, who was best known to movie audiences at the time for her appearances in the Dr. Kildare films as Lew Ayres’ love interest (nurse Molly Lamont).  Hitchcock also ended up casting Joel McCrea as his hero when Gary Cooper turned him down (Coop wasn’t interested in making a spy thriller) but the actor later told the director “I’ve made a huge mistake” in a manner that would have made Gob Bluth proud.

Because of the casting of McCrea and Day as the leads in this film, Foreign Correspondent never really got the respect that most of Hitchcock’s major films received—though the critical reaction was mostly positive, more than a few called the movie a glorified B-film.  I think this does a disservice to the film—I’ve long championed McCrea as one of the most underrated film actors of his generation, with a range that extended everywhere from comedy to westerns…and I think Day is splendid in the film as well, acquitting herself very nicely in her role and demonstrating a rather sweet chemistry with her co-star.  Their celebrated scene on the boat back to London—in which both of them declare their love and intention to marry, prompting McCrea’s character to crack: “Hmm…that cuts down our love scene quite a bit, doesn't it?”—was supposedly inspired by Hitchcock’s real-life proposal to his future bride, Alma Reville.

In addition to McCrea and Day, I think the casting in Correspondent is one of the reasons why I have such an affection for the film…beginning with Herbert Marshall, whose suave and debonair manner makes him one of Hitchcock’s great deceptive villains—the revelation that he is part of the spy ring who’s kidnapped Van Meer comes as quite a shock, even though viewers are kind of tipped off to the fact that there’s something not quite kosher about him by the presence of a rather sinister-looking dog.  In Correspondent, actors frequently play against type: Edmund Gwenn, whom we remember fondly as “Santa Claus” from the beloved Miracle on 34th Street (1947), effectively plays a ruthless assassin.  Both Marshall and Gwenn had worked with Hitch before (Marshall in Murder!; Gwenn in The Skin Game, Waltzes from Vienna and the future The Trouble with Harry) and their performances here stand as two of the best of their careers.

Another great visual moment (in three separate scenes): an establishing shot of Jones' hotel in Holland...

...then a close-up of Johnny's typewriter, announcing to his editor he's "hot on [the] trail"...

...and punctuates this during his escape from the spies in his hotel room by accidentally putting the "E" and "L" out of commission (which also comments that the situation on the continent is indeed "hot").

My favorite character in Foreign Correspondent is the one essayed by George Sanders…and while I’m not saying that Sanders always played villainous sorts throughout his film career (he was the hero in both the Saint and Falcon film series cranked out at RKO) he had a screen persona that can be summed up in just one word: cad.  So even when he gets to be the good guy, he’s still unable to shake that taint of the roué off of him—it’s his Scott ffoilliott who suggests that the way to getting Fisher is by kidnapping his daughter (fighting fire with fire, so to speak).  (When ffoilliott thinks his bluff with Fisher has succeeded…only to learn that the information as to Van Meer’s whereabouts is simply a note that informs him Fisher heard his daughter’s car pulling up—you kind of can’t help but admire Fisher’s cleverness.)  The sequence where ffoilliott infiltrates the spies’ nest is one of the highlights of Sanders’ screen career: “I would gladly relieve the young lady of this embarrassment, but you know how women are with firearms—they have no sense of timing.”

Of course, a few of the actors in the film were cast to do what they do best: Eduardo Ciannelli, already known for playing bad guys (he made a terrific villain in the serial Mysterious Dr. Satan released that same year), is memorably menacing as the thuggish Krug…and Martin Kosleck was already on his way to becoming the silver screen’s go-to Nazi officer.  Robert Benchley, the humorist who was originally hired to write additional dialogue for Correspondent, was drafted into playing comic relief as the alcoholic Stebbins (though he explains to Jones he’s on the wagon, even comically drinking a glass of milk).  Albert Bassermann only has a few scenes as Van Meer but his performance impressed enough of his peers that he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar (maybe it was because Bassermann spoke no English, and had to learn his lines phonetically).  Other familiar character faces in the film include Harry Davenport, Charles Halton, Ian Wolfe, Barbara Pepper, Gertrude Hoffman, Holmes Herbert and Emory Parnell (and Joan Leslie plays McCrea’s sister in the scene where his family is giving him the send-off on the boat!).

Foreign Correspondent, like most great Hitchcock films, contains so many unforgettable set pieces: the assassination of the fake Van Meer (and the wonderful effect in which the assassin escapes in a sea of umbrellas), the discovery of the spies in the windmill (the interior of which was designed by William Cameron Menzies, and it looks like something out of a Universal horror film) and the exciting plane crash of the film’s climax, which utilizes deceptively simple special effects but required a special tub for the studio’s water tank to be built to accommodate actor Marshall—he lost a leg in World War I and had difficulty swimming.  (I always make it a habit to watch Marshall in films and am amazed that the actor rarely walks with a limp.)  The cinematography by Rudolph Maté is breathtaking (Maté later became a director himself, helming the likes of D.O.A. and When Worlds Collide), the editing by Dorothy Spencer perfection and Alfred Newman’s film score—which belies the serious nature of the movie with a cheerful bounciness—is first-rate.

During my two years inside the hallowed halls of Marshall University back in the 1980s, I was fortunate to meet Hitchcock biographer Donald Spoto—who paid the college a visit in 1983 while he was promoting The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock.  Spoto gave a talk at a showing of Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), but he also met with a few of us Speech Broadcasting geeks to discuss the Master’s work…and I remember telling him how excited I was that I was going to get to see North by Northwest (1959) that weekend, which Marshall’s film committee had also scheduled, along with Rebecca.  Spoto told me he wished he could be there—though he didn’t have much praise for Rebecca, jibing that “it’s a Selznick film.”  This might be why I’ve always preferred Foreign Correspondent—there’s no question that it is steeped in Hitchcock-ness, a slight tweaking of the director’s patented “wrong man” formula (the main character hasn’t been accused of a crime but is doggedly determined to solve a mystery while constantly in motion) that zips along in its two-hour running time with all the ferocity of a cliffhanger serial.  (And yes, because of its six Academy Award nominations, Correspondent will be on TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar schedule—this Thursday, February 21, at 5:45pm.)