Black & White World

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

This is a rather unusual film for Hitchcock—although it is a thriller, it lacks many of the typical Hitchcockian elements that make films like North By Northwest and The 39 Steps so memorable.  In a typical Hitchcock thriller, our hero is the hunted, a wronged man seeking to clear his name by solving the mystery himself.  Here our hero is the hunter.  Foreign Correspondent came early in Hitchcock’s Hollywood studio career, and in many ways it’s his most American film, and maybe his most patriotic English film too.

All-American Joel McCrea is Johnny Jones (how much more All-American can you get with a name like that?), an investigative criminal journalist who is dispatched by his paper to London to dig up some real war news.  The opening scenes of the film, set in the newspaper offices, play out almost like a Howard Hawks film—all rat-tat-tat dialogue and dolly shots.

For the move to London and the new position, Jones’s paper rechristens him “Huntleigh Haverstock,” bridging the two sides of the Atlantic.  He teams up with Scott ffolliott (the always excellent George Sanders), and here too their teamwork suggests an allegory for American and British relations—Jones is blustery and headstrong, ffolliott is understated and wry, but between them they manage to get the job done.  It’s pretty effective propaganda, and only gets heavy-handed at the end when Jones makes his impassioned radio address:  “Hang on to your lights, America—they’re the only lights left in the world!” It’s over the top, particularly for a modern audience, but it’s heartfelt.