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Foreign Correspondent, 1940
American reporter John Jones (Joel McCrea) is sent to Europe after complaining to his bosses that he's covering boring stories. But once there, he quickly becomes entangled in a complex political plot involving the faked assassination of a diplomat (Albert Bassermann). Along the way he falls for a woman named Carol (Laraine Day) who is involved with a peace organization and gets help from a suave fellow reporter ffoliott (George Sanders).
I liked this film, with its twisty-turny plot and Hitchcock signature sardonic lead character. It made me think a lot of elements that I enjoyed in The 39 Steps.
McCrea is enjoyable in his lead role as the reporter who gets more than he asked for on his new assignment. He has decent chemistry with Day, playing a character who is torn between her attraction to John and the suspicion that he's just using her to chase a story and besmirch her father's reputation. The saving grace for me, character-wise, was Sanders in his role as another reporter. His character feels almost more like a spy than a reporter, but I'm not complaining. He injects the film with some much needed personality.
In terms of the action, the film kind of rolls along between various set-pieces, until the final act where things seem to take a much more intense turn. We are given a sequence where a confused man is ruthlessly manipulated and interrogated in an attempt to get him to reveal secret information. In the film's biggest sequence, an
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On the villain side of things, though, the film is a bit less memorable. I had some really, REALLY mixed feelings about the way that the film talks about Carol's father at the end. There's a lot of wiffly-waffly stuff about him still being a good man and just doing what he thinks is right for his country. Like, um, excuse me. He was complicit in the physical and psychological torture of an elderly man. I know that despicable and amoral things were done on both sides of WW2 to get desired results, but I did not care for the way his character is excused and even sort of celebrated at the end. It made me think a lot of what I hated about the end of The Furies, where a character who has done horrible things is just sort of given a pass.
I would say that this is a pretty middle-of-the-road film in terms of what I've seen from Hitchcock. I liked it, but felt that it missed a spark to be really great. I will admit that the plane sequence alone is probably adding a half star to my rating.
Foreign Correspondent, 1940
American reporter John Jones (Joel McCrea) is sent to Europe after complaining to his bosses that he's covering boring stories. But once there, he quickly becomes entangled in a complex political plot involving the faked assassination of a diplomat (Albert Bassermann). Along the way he falls for a woman named Carol (Laraine Day) who is involved with a peace organization and gets help from a suave fellow reporter ffoliott (George Sanders).
I liked this film, with its twisty-turny plot and Hitchcock signature sardonic lead character. It made me think a lot of elements that I enjoyed in The 39 Steps.
McCrea is enjoyable in his lead role as the reporter who gets more than he asked for on his new assignment. He has decent chemistry with Day, playing a character who is torn between her attraction to John and the suspicion that he's just using her to chase a story and besmirch her father's reputation. The saving grace for me, character-wise, was Sanders in his role as another reporter. His character feels almost more like a spy than a reporter, but I'm not complaining. He injects the film with some much needed personality.
In terms of the action, the film kind of rolls along between various set-pieces, until the final act where things seem to take a much more intense turn. We are given a sequence where a confused man is ruthlessly manipulated and interrogated in an attempt to get him to reveal secret information. In the film's biggest sequence, an
WARNING: spoilers below
airplane is fired on and subsequently crashes into the ocean where the surviving passengers must weather brutal waves as they cling to a detached plane wing
On the villain side of things, though, the film is a bit less memorable. I had some really, REALLY mixed feelings about the way that the film talks about Carol's father at the end. There's a lot of wiffly-waffly stuff about him still being a good man and just doing what he thinks is right for his country. Like, um, excuse me. He was complicit in the physical and psychological torture of an elderly man. I know that despicable and amoral things were done on both sides of WW2 to get desired results, but I did not care for the way his character is excused and even sort of celebrated at the end. It made me think a lot of what I hated about the end of The Furies, where a character who has done horrible things is just sort of given a pass.
I would say that this is a pretty middle-of-the-road film in terms of what I've seen from Hitchcock. I liked it, but felt that it missed a spark to be really great. I will admit that the plane sequence alone is probably adding a half star to my rating.