Product Description: On the eve of ww2 a young american reporter tries to expose enemy agents in london. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/07/2004 Starring: Joel Mccrea Herbert Marshall Run time: 120 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Amazon.com essential video: 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
Amazon.com: 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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Terrific Hitchcock
Joel McCrea known for his great work with directer Preston Sturges stars here with Laraine Day. McCrea plays it like no other can. They both give charming performances similar to the 2 actors in 'Young and Innocent'. Hitchcock stages some wonderful scenes including a plane crash. If you love the 'Hitchcock Way' of ... Read More
Rating: - Every which way
Made during his early years in Hollywood, the little-seen FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT reflects Hitchcock is one of his most experimental phases: as in his follow-up to this, SABOTEUR, the film uses an espionage plot mostly as an excuse to show off. Here he seems mostly interested in seeing how he can work with mise-en-scene ... Read More
Rating: - The Great Suspense Thriller
"The events in this film are fiction" says the opening. This film is dedicated to the foreign correspondents who report the news. The publisher of the 'NY Globe' wants to send a crime reporter, Johnny Jones, to report on Europe with a fresh outlook. He is to interview Van Meer on the situation in Europe. There are some ... Read More
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