Hitchcock’s War Face

By Raymond Benson

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film Foreign Correspondent is often underrated or forgotten when it comes to lists of the director’s “best” films. In fact, it was nominated for an Oscar Best Picture the same year as Rebecca (which won), and, personally, I think it’s the better movie. It’s certainly more of a “Hitchcock film” than Rebecca, as it is one of those cross-country espionage adventure-thrillers along the lines of The 39 Steps, Saboteur, and North by Northwest.

It was the director’s second Hollywood movie. Although Hitchcock was contracted to David O. Selznick (who produced Rebecca), Hitch’s deal allowed Selznick to “farm out” the director to other studios and producers, for a piece of Hitchcock’s salary, of course. In this case, Foreign Correspondent was produced by Walter Wanger (who had also produced John Ford’s Stagecoach). It’s interesting that during the seven-year period in which Hitch worked for Selznick, the non-Selznick-produced pictures, in my opinion, were arguably better (Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, and Notorious, are other examples).

The story concerns an American journalist (Joel McCrea) who is sent to Europe, prior to September 1939, to interview various personages in order to determine if war is likely to break out. Predictably, McCrea immediately falls into a plot involving assassination, the kidnapping of a diplomat, and devious Nazi spies. Co-starring Laraine Day as the blonde love interest, Herbert Marshall as her father, George Sanders as McCrea’s ally, and Albert Bassermann (nominated for Best Supporting Actor) as a Dutch diplomat who is really the MacGuffin of the story, the picture served as propaganda to persuade America to be more sympathetic to what was occurring across the Atlantic. When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, America stayed neutral while Britain and France declared war on Germany. The allies pleaded with the U.S. government to enter the war and come to their aid, but there was significant anti-war sentiment in America at the time.

Being British to begin with, Hitchcock, instead of returning to his native England to face the crisis with his kinsmen, chose to support the war effort in a more subtle way—by making propaganda films thinly disguised as entertainment. Actually, the picture itself is in no way subtle—its message hits you on the head with a hammer. McCrea’s final monologue, in which he broadcasts to the American people that they must join the fight in Europe, was at the time deemed quite controversial. Like Chaplin’s final speech in The Great Dictator (the same year), the language is strongly proselytizing. The film includes several signature Hitchcock set pieces—the black umbrellas in the rain, the windmills reversing direction, the plane crash into the sea—all the while keeping the audience in a state of nail-biting suspense. McCrea is splendid and serves as a fine Hitchcockian “everyman,” and the visual effects, for 1940, are extraordinary. Foreign Correspondent, it’s been said, was also admired by Ian Fleming, who at the time of the film’s release had once worked as a journalist but was then serving as the personal assistant to Britain’s Director of Naval Intelligence. It’s understandable why a spy story like Correspondent would appeal to the future creator of James Bond.

The Criterion Collection once again graces us with a dual Blu-ray/DVD format package (three disks), which makes sense marketing-wise, and the new 2K digital film restoration looks marvelous. Extras include a new piece on the film’s special effects; Hollywood Propaganda and World War II, a fascinating look at cinema in that era; an excerpt from The Dick Cavett Show featuring guest Hitchcock, who comes off as more of a comedian than a filmmaker; and a very interesting photo essay about wartime rumors shot by Hitchcock himself that originally appeared in a Life Magazine issue from 1942—it tells a story in the form of photographic storyboards. Add the booklet with an essay by film scholar James Naremore, and you have another must-have gem from not only Criterion, but from the Master of Suspense.

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