Ask any film buff to name Alfred Hitchcock’s best films and certain titles will crop up: Rear Window, Vertigo, Strangers on a Train, Psycho immediately come to mind. Interestingly, none of these were examples of the chase thriller that initially made Hitchcock’s career in England in the 1930s. Films such as The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Lady Vanishes and especially The Thirty-Nine Steps were responsible for shaping Hitchcock’s reputation as a superior film maker.
In 1939, David O. Selznick, then at the height of his success making Gone With the Wind, arranged for Hitchcock to come to America to direct a film version of Daphne du Maurier’s hugely popular novel, Rebecca. Hitchcock would make four films for him at $40,000 per picture, a huge sum compared to what he was paid in England.
Rebecca was a great success, winning another Best Picture of the Year Award for Selznick to follow his triumph with Gone With the Wind. It also captured Academy Award Nominations for Best Actress for Joan Fontaine and a best supporting nomination for Judith Anderson. Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director but lost to John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath. All in all, a good start for a new director in Hollywood.
But Rebecca wasn’t the type of chase thrillers that had made Hitchcock’s reputation. His second project, Foreign Correspondent would show his mastery of a type of film format that Hollywood hadn’t mastered.
European box office represented Hollywood profit
Hitchcock had arrived in America in June 1939 with Europe in the throes of deepening international tension. Hollywood, with its reputation for avoiding unpleasant situations, had shown little interest in the emergence of totalitarian movements in Europe in the 1930s. For one thing, the Hollywood studios depended a great deal on box-office receipts from Europe for paying their bills: the U.S. market usually covered costs while the overseas market provided the profit.
The lesson for the Hollywood moguls was simple: don’t alienate the foreign market. Up until 1939, only Warner Brothers had made a film that dealt with this emerging political crisis in Europe: Confessions of a Nazi Spy, the first time the word Nazi was used in an American film. In some anti-Fascist films such as Blockade Escape, Arise My Love it was impossible to tell what the issues were and what the context was.
With Hitchcock needing a new project, the independent producer, Walter Wanger, made a deal with Selznick to borrow him for a film project he had planned for some time. It cost Wanger $60,000 for Hitchcock’s services — a sign of what a valuable commodity he was after Rebecca.
Evolution of Foreign Correspondent
Wanger wanted to make a film set against the deteriorating diplomatic situation in Europe. In 1936 he had bought the rights to Personal History, the memoir of a famous foreign correspondent, Vincent Sheean, which he believed would make an exciting film.
Wanger hired several writers to prepare a workable script. Initially the story would revolve around the exploits of a foreign correspondent against the background of the Spanish Civil War. By the time that conflict ended in 1939, Wanger had invested over $200,000 in various drafts and had nothing to show for it.
After Hitchcock finished Rebecca, he was happy to have a film property that better suited his talents and one that reflected the reality of the situation now that war had broken out. Like other English refugees in Hollywood, he was being criticized for leaving England in time of crisis. One wag suggested that they make a film called Gone With the Wind Up. Hitchcock wanted to do his part by making a film in his thriller chase format that would show America the dangers of the European situation.
Wanger budgeted $1.5 million for the film and had the screenplay revised once again with a simple but effective title: Foreign Correspondent. It had little or nothing to do with Sheean’s book. This time the story would focus on the last days of peace and the adventures of an intrepid but naive American foreign reporter trying to expose the forces who were plunging Europe into war. Hitchcock was uncomfortable doing propaganda but saw Foreign Correspondent as a way of warning America of the dangers and unreality of isolationism.
Gary Cooper's mistake: Turning down Hitchcock
Hitchcock quickly put together a cast. He wanted Gary Cooper to play the determined but naïve reporter. Cooper turned him down saying he didn’t feel comfortable doing thrillers. Later he told Hitchcock he had made a mistake. Instead of Cooper, Hitchcock got Joel McCrea, then a popular leading man but one who lacked the honest and human quality that Cooper specialized in.
To symbolize America’s naivete and innocence, McCrea’s name in the film is Johnny Jones, the very name George M. Cohan used in his musical about a brash American in England, “Little Johnny Jones.”
McCrea’s geopolitical ignorance is made clear at the outset. The editor of his paper sending him to Europe, played by the kindly character actor, Harry Davenport, asked him what he thinks about the present European crisis.
McCrea: “What crisis.”
Davenport: “I am referring to the impending war, Mr. Jones.”
McCrea: “To be very frank, sir, I haven’t given it much thought.”
McCrea was given a more appropriate name, Huntley Haverstock, symbolic of the change that will occur between the naïve American and the soon to be worldly wise foreign correspondent.
The female lead, and McCrea’s love interest, went to 22-year-old Laraine Day who had made an impact in the popular Dr. Kildare series.
The supporting cast gave the film its polish. As the leader of a peace movement but, in reality, a German spy, Hitchcock enlisted Herbert Marshall who gave his usual sophisticated performance. An old Hitchcock associate from his days in England, Edmund Gwenn played a cheery character who is a professional assassin who tries to murder McCrea. Playing a reporter who is working for the British government, George Sanders delivered one of his typical sardonic portrayals. But the actor who steals the film is Albert Basserman, in just his second role in America. Playing the Dutch Premier, Van Meer, who holds the key to peace, Basserman gave a masterful performance for which he would be nominated for an Academy Award. Even more remarkable, he spoke little English and had to learn the role phonetically. Robert Benchley had a small role as one of McCrea’s fellow reporters. Hitchcock allowed him to write his own dialogue, which was delivered with the witty and world-weary quality that he was famous for.
Hitchcock's artistry on full display
The film moves with an exciting pace with several scenes that are outstanding examples of Hitchcockian artistry. The assassination of Van Meer takes place on the steps of a government building in Amsterdam with a heavy rain falling and everyone carrying black umbrellas. Van Meer is shot in the face and tumbles down the steps in a scene reminiscent of the step scene in Battleship Potemkin. The assassin’s flight is traced from above by the disturbance of the crowd’s umbrellas.
Hitchcock was proud of the next big scene. Following the assassin, McCrea notices a windmill turning in the wrong direction. McCrea investigates and discovers Van Meer alive. He is whisked away before McCrae can reach the police. A double had been killed and Van Meer taken prisoner.
McCrae tells Day: “I don’t know what’s the matter with Europe. But I know a story when I see one. And I’ll keep after it ‘til I either get it or it gets me.” He is becoming a symbol of America, gradually realizing that isolationism and neutrality may no longer suffice.
The rest of the film traces McCrae’s efforts to find Van Meer, in the process disclosing that Marshall was a Nazi agent. There are several typical Hitchcock concoctions: the attempt to kill McCrae by throwing him off Westminster Cathedral while a funeral mass is being celebrated, the discovery of the real Van Meer and a brilliantly constructed plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic.
Initially is not clear who the villains were working for. But Hitchcock clearly identifies them toward the end of the film. In the windmill scene the villains speak an artificial language something which sounds like Esperanto, but toward the end of the film, they now speak German. Just in case anyone missed the message. The film ends with McCrae broadcasting to America from London now being bombed with the "Star-Spangled Banner" playing in the background: “Hello, America. I have been watching a part of the world being blown to pieces … It feels like all the lights are out everywhere except America. Keep those lights burning … They're the only lights left in the world.”
Hitchcock claimed he got a letter of congratulations for that scene from Harry Hopkins, FDR’s closest confidant.
Foreign Correspondent’s timing was perfect -- it was released in August 1940 just as the Battle of Britain was about to start. It was a major success being voted one of the best films of the year by the National Board of Review and turned a tidy profit. It also was one of the first films to alert the nation to the threat of war coming to America.
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