Foreign Correspondent

Foreign Correspondent

Foreign Correspondent
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Albert Bassermann, Eddie Conrad, Eduardo Ciannelli, Frances Carson, Robert Benchley
Brand: Warner Brothers
Primary Contributor: Laraine Day
Primary Contributor: McCrea, Joel
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Dutch (Original Language); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video

Movie Reviews of Foreign Correspondent

Movie Review: 3.5 stars out of 4
Summary: 5 Stars

The Bottom Line:

A nifty thriller the captures the zeitgeist of pre-war Britain perfectly while offering Hitchcock's usual blend of thrills and comedy, Foreign Correspondent also features a gripping plane crash at see and a final speech to rival all others: "Hold on to your lights America--they're the only lights left in the world!"

Summary of Foreign Correspondent

Johnny Jones is an action reporter on a New York newspaper. The editor appoints him European correspondent because he is fed up with the dry reports he currently gets. Jones' first assignment is to get the inside story on a secret treaty agreed between two European countries by the famous diplomat Mr. Van Meer. However things don't go to plan and Jones enlists the help of a young woman to help track down a group of spies.Running Time: 120 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA UPC:?085393186227
The first of Alfred Hitchcock's World War II features, Foreign Correspondent was completed in 1940, as the European war was only beginning to erupt across national borders. Its titular hero, Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea), is an American crime reporter dispatched by his New York publisher to put a fresh spin on the drowsy dispatches emanating from overseas, his nose for a good story (and, of course, some fortuitous timing) promptly leading him to the "crime" of fascism and Nazi Germany's designs on European conquest.

In attempting to learn more about a seemingly noble peace effort, Jones (who's been saddled with the dubious nom du plume Hadley Haverstock) walks into the middle of an assassination, uncovers a spy ring, and, not entirely coincidentally, falls in love--a pattern familiar to admirers of Hitchcock's espionage thrillers, of which this is a thoroughly entertaining example. McCrea's hardy Yankee charms are neatly contrasted with the droll, veddy English charm of colleague George Sanders; Herbert Marshall provides a plummy variation on the requisite, ambiguous "good-or-is-he-really-bad" guy; Laraine Day affords a lovely heroine; and Robert Benchley (who contributed to the script) pops up, albeit too briefly, for comic relief.

As good as the cast is, however, it's Hitchcock's staging of key action sequences that makes Foreign Correspondent a textbook example of the director's visual energy: an assassin's escape through a rain-soaked crowd is registered by rippling umbrellas, a nest of spies is detected by the improbable direction of a windmill's spinning sails, and Jones's nocturnal flight across a pitched city rooftop produces its own contextual comment when broken neon tubes convert the Hotel Europe into "Hot Europe." --Sam Sutherland


For inexplicable reasons, Foreign Correspondent never achieved the fame of The 39 Steps or North by Northwest, but it is certainly good enough to join the ranks of these better-known Hitchcock thrillers. Set just before the beginning of World War II, the film focuses on murder, international intrigue, and an innocent Joel McCrea caught between spies and counterspies. Highlights include an assassination on a rainy day with the killer escaping into a sea of umbrellas, a group of spies who signal their Dutch contacts by turning windmills against the wind, and an extraordinary climax aboard a plane that crashes into the ocean. In McCrea's final speech, you can hear the British filmmaker uniting American patriotism with the anti-Nazi cause. --Raphael Shargel

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