‘Foreign Correspondent‘ is the second film made by Alfred Hitchcock after his ‘relocation’ to the United States. It was filmed and released in the same year as his first American film, ‘Rebecca’, in 1940, and competed with it for the Academy Award for Best Picture. ‘Foreign Correspondent‘ lost, as it did in the other five categories in which it was nominated. Perhaps if the awards had been scheduled a year later, the result would have been different. The United States had not yet entered the war and the film’s very clear anti-Nazi stance was controversial at the time in an America still hesitating between isolationism and involvement in the conflict that had begun a year earlier in Europe. In addition, the film was an action film, so in terms of subject matter it was closer to a ‘B movie’, although the costs of the special effects made by Hitchcock were probably not very small. In the decades that followed, Hitchcock would prove that he did not consider suspense and action films to be inferior to dramas or comedies, releasing some of the genre’s masterpieces and reference films. ‘Foreign Correspondent‘ opens this path.
The story, based on the memories book of a well-known journalist, takes place in the days leading up to the outbreak of World War II and in the first days of the war. The young American journalist John Jones is sent, under a pseudonym, to convey news to the public in the United States about the political tensions in Europe, the threats of war and the efforts to prevent its outbreak. Arriving in London and then in Amsterdam, he meets the Dutch politician Van Meer, the tycoon Stephen Fisher – leader of an organization campaigning for peace -, and his beautiful daughter, Carole, with whom, inevitably, he falls in love. The plot becomes complicated, with Van Meer at the center of the intrigue, as he holds in his memory the content of a treaty with secret clauses on which the fate of peace and war depends. Historically, in the very days in which the story in the film film takes place, the (in)famous pact with secret clauses that led to the breaking of war was being concluded between Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR, although it is not clear that this event is alluded to in the film. Inevitably, war breaks out, and the American journalist will be among the first to inform the American public of the events taking place in Europe. To achieve this, his life is repeatedly put in danger. These are the risks of the war journalist’s job and those of the heroes of Hitchcock‘s films, ordinary people who find themselves involved in violent conflicts with huge stakes.
Hitchcock would have liked to benefit from the casting of stars such as Gary Cooper or Joan Fontaine (with whom he had filmed ‘Rebecca’), but the studios were unable to ensure their participation. It is said that Gary Cooper would later regret it. Joel McCrea and Laraine Day were good actors, who made an OK job here, but the film does not shine because of the actors. Several smaller roles, some negative, give the opportunity for more interesting interpretations, as happens in many of Hitchcock‘s films but also in those of the German Expressionists. There is no shortage of spectacular scenes, among the best of Hitchcock’s action films: the plane crash into the sea, the assassination attempt from the tower, a very original scene that takes place in a Dutch windmill and the episode of the assassination on the steps in Amsterdam in which I suspect Hitchcock was quoting Eisenstein. The final scene is impressive and – almost unbelievably – also premonitory, since the film was made before the savage bombing of London by the German air forces. The hero journalist, broadcasting from the darkness of bombed London, tells his American compatriots ‘Keep the lights on’! A symbolic and impactful ending. Alfred Hitchcock, the master of escapist cinema, made perhaps the most engaged film of his career here.