DISPATCH FROM LONDON: FRESH ILTBTA POST. HITCHCOCK’S “FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.” BRING UMBRELLA. READ NOW!
Previews
What, if anything, did we know about this coming attraction before we watched it?
Ellen: I’ve probably heard of this movie in passing but never connected the dots. My main interaction with foreign correspondents is that it’s Rory Gilmore’s dream career.
Tyler: I genuinely have no idea what this movie is. Apparently it’s a Hitchcock movie, though, so given how much I enjoy his other movies I feel that could bode well? Maybe? Bueller?
Plots & Feelings
This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Short Version (courtesy of IMDb): On the eve of World War II, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London.
Long Version (modified from Wikipedia and formatted to fit your screen):
What’s black and white and read all over? The New York Morning Globe in 1939, whose titular globe we see spinning in the background as the credits scroll. Rumors of war in Europe are swirling, and the editor Mr. Powers has had it up to here with foreign correspondents using 1,200 words to express that they substantiated nothing. He wants new blood in Europe to get some actual news, and he thinks Johnny Jones is just the man. They give him the briefest of briefings, rename him Huntley Haverstock, and send him off on the Queen Mary.
JohnnyHuntley will be interviewing a Dutch diplomat named Van Meer at an event held by Stephen Fisher, head of the Universal Peace Party.Once in London, Huntley meets up with our jaded foreign correspondent stand-in: Plunger Stebbins1. He spends some time that night getting used to his top hat and using an umbrella as a cane, getting ready to seem the cosmopolitan man about town. His assignment is off to a good start the next day when he shares a cab with Van Meer to the luncheon. The Dutchman is as tight-lipped as ever, but Huntley now has debating the beautiful daughter of Fisher, Carol, to distract him. He writes her over thirty notes during the meal, delivered to her by a slightly exasperated server. The whole affair ends on a pretty sus note2, however, as Van Meer apparently left a cable saying he was suddenly called away.
Ellen: We’ll get to my issues with this relationship later, but this is properly cute! He included little pictures!
Tyler: I don’t know, implying that you could have a lot of children with a woman you just met and disagreed with (and not in a flirty way) was an icky escalation. It reminds me of those allegedly cute stories of how couples started dating after the man just wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Ellen: Fair play to you, I’m a sucker for cartoons.
Tyler: Noted.
The luncheon having been a bust, Huntley is dispatched off to Amsterdam to cover Van Meer’s speech at a peace conference. Van Meer looks utterly befuddled to see Huntley, seemingly not remembering meeting him only a few days ago. We’ve got bigger fish to fry, however, when a photographer shoots Van Meer in the face! He disappears into a sea of black umbrellas, and Huntley gives chase. Our reporter eventually hops into a car with Carol and her British reporter friend Scott ffolliott3. The car chase proceeds into a field of windmills, and their quarry disappears without a trace! Huntley notices a windmill acting strangely and sends the others off while he investigates. He discovers that someone is manually making the blades switch directions to signal a getaway plane. He sneaks inside and finds… Van Meer! The diplomat explains that it was a substitute who was shot, and this group has kidnapped him for unknown dastardly reasons. He’s been drugged something fierce and is unable to explain much. Huntley manages to escape out a window before the men in the windmill find him, but by the time he brings the cops back, all the evidence is gone.
Ellen: A jungle gym experience where you climb through this windmill around all the gears and up crisscrossing staircases would make a killing with, uh… me!
Tyler: We can add that to a Hitchcock themed play area in our future ILTBTA theme park. Also, I think I held my breath the entire time Huntley was in the windmill, that was really suspenseful and well done.
Back at his hotel room, cops arrive to take Huntley to talk to the chief. He is on high alert, and is like “sure sure one sec” and hides in the bathroom, only to see them readying guns through the keyhole! He climbs out yet another window and scales the side of the hotel to land in, who else’s room but Carol Fisher! She’s mid-event, and none too pleased to see him, having believed he was just having a laugh with the whole windmill snafu. She eventually recognizes his seriousness, and they call up a plumber, a maid, a window washer, and other workers to Huntley’s room to waylay the would-be murders. They can’t get a cabin for the ship back to England, so they spend a cozy night cuddled on the deck together, where they
remain engrossed in conversation and cultivate the seeds of their initial attraction into a deeper connectionprofess their love and intent to marry each other. NATURALLY.Ellen: Y’ALL WERE CLOSE! I bought their flirting up until now, it was building nicely, and we do get a little bit of them talking all night on the ship. They just jumped straight to improbable love at second sight. It’s like they cannot fathom a man and woman caring about each other unless the stakes are at least engagement, and I’ve lost a lot of my ability to take these people seriously. I know it’s a different time, but whatever, bad writing is bad writing.
Tyler: After that scene I wrote in my contemporaneous notes "OMG NO STOP IT NOT THIS AGAIN” because, for the millionth time, we should not be able to compare a love story in an Oscar-nominated movie to one you see on The Bachelor. I mean, even people on The Bachelor at least have the decency to first say that they’re falling in love. These two were just like “I met you like two days ago but I love you and hey let’s also get married.” I need something more realistic like meeting then waiting two years to start dating, then doing long-distance for a year-and-a-half, then one of them moving across the country before a global pandemic, then getting engaged after exactly four years of dating. Ya know, something random like that.
We now know Carol is insane, but she’s wearing an incredible coat as she arrives with the equally-insane Huntley at her father’s house. He’s talking with a business associate named Krug, whom Huntley recognizes from the windmill plot. Huntley takes Fisher aside to warn him, and he’s like “yeah yeah yeah, I got it.” Fisher immediately confronts Krug… about the fact that he didn’t take care of Huntley already! Well shoot, he’s in on it. They arrange to have a hitman pose as a bodyguard for Huntley, and Fisher convinces Carol and Huntley to keep it all quiet to “protect” Van Meer. The bowler-hat-wearing Rowley wastes no time initially trying to kill Huntley by pushing him in front of a bus, but manages to play it off when he’s unsuccessful. He takes Huntley to the top of Westminster Cathedral and, perhaps cowed by his initial failure, takes an eternity to finally give the reporter a push. Cut to a shot of a body falling from the tower, but it’s Rowley!
Ellen: Rowley does give some proper respect to the architecture of the cathedral; he’s a killer-for-hire, not a heathen!
At good ole Plunger’s office, Huntley recounts the tale, and we learn that ffolliott has been onto Fisher this whole time. There was a secret clause in the treaty Van Meer signed that would greatly benefit the Germans, if only they had the knowledge. Ffolliott comes up with the ill-advised plan for Huntley to take Carol into the country to keep them both safe, but tell Fisher that his daughter has been kidnapped for leverage. Huntley reluctantly goes along with it, and the couple gets some quality time Kissing in the Country™. Carol unfortunately overhears Huntley asking the innkeeper for separate rooms, which he thought was gentlemanly, and she interprets as a sign he doesn’t really love her. These are the communication nuances that’ll trip you up two days into a relationship/engagement! Meanwhile, Fisher has his and his daughter’s bags packed, ready to bolt to America when things pop off. Ffolliott starts making his threats regarding Carol’s safety, and we’re lead to believe that Fisher is writing down Van Meer’s location, but a distraught Carol enters and it’s revealed that the note says “sorry, I heard my daughter’s car coming.”
Fisher dashes off to go interrogate Van Meer, and it turns out ffolliott was hiding in the bushes and has the location too! He leaves word for Huntley and follows. Van Meer is being kept in the upstairs room of a restaurant under renovation. His captors play loud music and shine floodlights in his face, trying to wear him down. Fisher pretends to still be his friend in order to discover the secret treaty clause, but ffolliott, who whoops has been captured at gunpoint, yells to Van Meer not to trust him. Huntley arrives, and he and ffolliott manage to get Van Meer to safety, but the bad guys escape. Ffolliott’s contacts at Scotland Yard are of no help, so he and Huntley make plans to get on the same clipper plane to America as Fisher and Carol the next day.
Britain and France declare war on Germany! On the plane, Fisher intercepts a telegram intended for ffolliott and learns he’ll be arrested when they land. He confesses to Carol, who is deeply disappointed and hurt but still cares for him. Huntley and ffolliott join the duo, and while they seem to be prepared to talk calmly, the German destroyer in the water below very un-calmly starts shelling the plane! A woman is straight up shot in the aisleway, and the plane crashes into the ocean in chaos. The survivors perch on the floating wing of the downed aircraft, but their combined weight is too much. Realizing this, Fisher slips into the ocean and allows himself to drown to save the rest of them. An American ship rescues them, but the reporters aren’t allowed to file stories due to American neutrality. Huntley is reluctant to report it anyway, because he doesn’t want to betray Carol, but she wants the story told. He manages to relay everything to Mr. Powers back in New York and says that despite his sins, Fisher died a hero. They return to England, and Huntley is now a successful war correspondent. The film closes on him giving a live radio broadcast back to America, urging them to “keep the lights burning” as London is bombed and the lights go dark.
Ellen: Hear me out: it was remarkable of Fisher to sacrifice himself to allow the wreckage to float, sure. But I think you also have to consider that he already knew what would happen to him if he made it out, so really, what choice did he have?
Tyler: I totally agree. I wish we got a more realistic/cynical reflection of his sacrifice from a character who wasn’t related to him.
Intermission
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Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat?
Love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole in search of some fun facts? Us too.
Foreign Correspondent’s Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and anecdotes that we recommend you read through, but here are a few of our favorites:
Foreign Correspondent is technically based on the memoir Personal History by journalist Vincent Sheean, but producer Walter Wanger allowed the film to differ significantly from the book after initial adaptations proved unsatisfactory.
Director Alfred Hitchcock originally wanted Gary Cooper (of Wings and High Noon fame, amongst others) and Joan Fontaine to star, but Cooper turned it down and producer David O. Selznick would not loan out Fontaine. Hitchcock worked with Fontaine on Rebecca, which beat Foreign Correspondent for Best Picture in 1940.
Tyler: This isn’t related to Foreign Correspondent but I had to share: in 1947, almost-Foreign Correspondent-star Joan Fontaine won the Golden Apple Award, given out by the Hollywood Women’s Press Club in recognition of positive behavior rather than actual performance. In addition to recognizing actors for being easy to work with, the Press Club also gave out the Sour Apple Award for those deemed rude or difficult to work with.
The mid-ocean plane crash sequence was designed by celebrated production designer William Cameron Menzies. Footage from a stunt aircraft diving over the ocean was rear-projected onto rice paper in front of the cockpit, while two water chutes connected to large tanks were behind the rice paper. With the chutes aimed at the cockpit windshield, they broke through the rice paper at the designated time to simulate the plane crashing into the ocean.
Tyler: Here is a video I found that visualizes the process.
The movie originally ended with two of the characters discussing the events on a seaplane back to the United States. However, after Hitchcock visited his native England and realized the Germans would start bombing London soon, the final epilogue involving the radio broadcast was written.
Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels called the movie “a masterpiece of propaganda, a first-class production which no doubt will make a certain impression upon the broad masses of the people in enemy countries.”
Ellen: I suppose he would know.
Oscar NomNomNomz
Since we all know a movie is nothing without the food and drink it incorporates.
It’s now time to award the Oscar for Best Snacktor in a Supporting Role4. And the nomnomnominees are:
A scotch and soda after a train ride into London
A glass of milk
Dog treats for Fisher's dog
And the Oscar goes to … dog treats for Fisher’s dog! Unfortunately, the dog was a very good boy and gave us the puppy dog eyes until we gave him the treats, so we will accept this award on their behalf.
Fill In The Blank
How did we really feel about The Academy nominating this?
Ellen: I’d like to send the Academy back to America on a plane that doesn’t get shot down by a destroyer. There were a lot of good acting and dialogue bits from this movie, and the production was really great. The windmill scene and of course the plane crash really stand out. As previously mentioned, the romance was utterly unbelievable. I also take some issue with the very quick redemption arc for Fisher. While I do buy that his daughter would be more forgiving, Jones/Huntley and ffolliott seemed way too ready to just put it all behind them. He lied, killed, and tortured! And that’s before he sacrificed himself in the water. Fisher would have been absolutely screwed going back to England. It’s a case where the morally right thing and the thing arguably most beneficial to him happened to be the same.
In my experience, a lot of Hitchcock movies leave you more cynical than when you began, but this one seems uncharacteristically earnest. I’m sure that’s a function of the severity of the conflict and Hitchcock being from England as they were beginning the war. Maybe I’m reading too much into the timeline, but this seems like a quick turnaround for this movie to hit theaters, and given America’s neutrality at the time, I feel like that was no accident. Especially at the end, it equates getting the story out to a moral imperative, and as his characters do, so does Hitchcock. And that also makes me wonder if the writing was a bit rushed, and some of my problems with Jones/Carol/Fisher were a result of time crunches not producing the best writing.
Tyler: I’d like to kindly tell the Academy that I will be RSVPing “no” to Huntley and Carol’s upcoming wedding, but still buy them a nice gift off their registry.5 I thought Foreign Correspondent was a good-not-great movie, definitely enjoyable and above-average but certainly not a “classic” per se like some of Hitchcock’s other films. On the plus side, there were several moments of genuine suspense (e.g., the windmill scene, the plane crash) and twists and turns in the plot that were incredibly well done that kept me engaged throughout the entire movie. It certainly passed the “Do I feel the urge to look at my phone test.” Also, as discussed in Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat, the plane crash scene was really impressive for a movie made in the early 1940s.
On the other hand, I wasn’t a fan of some of the plot choices (the aforementioned forced romantic subplot and the unearned redemption via Fisher’s Jack-from-Titanic move stand out) or the epilogue, which with the Star Spangled Banner playing would’ve bordered on jingoistic if it wasn’t so hilariously out of place. As you mentioned (and as we learned in Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat), the new epilogue was probably a bit more personal for the director, but it seemed a bit odd.
Let The Credits Roll
Thanks for reading! Some quick housekeeping as you exit the theatre:
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Post-Credits Scene
Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.
Grab your tissues because our next ILTBTA movie will be the 1992 thriller The Crying Game. Starring Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, and Forest Whitaker, The Crying Game follows a member of the Irish Republican Army who imprisons a British soldier during The Troubles. It is available to watch for free with an HBO Max subscription and for a few bucks from the other streaming giants.
Until then, keep the lights burning!
Ellen: Perfect name no notes.
Sounds like my ex-wife!
The lowercase is deliberate. They truly spend like five minutes explaining the history of why the capital was lopped off his last name and it never comes up again.
Results tabulated and certified by the accountants at Ernst & Yum™.
Can you tell we’re in the middle of planning a wedding ourselves?