Foreign Correspondent

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by Walter Wanger
Written by Memoir: Vincent Sheean
Screenplay: Charles Bennett & Joan Harrison
Dialogue: Robert Benchley & James Hilton
Uncredited: Harold Clurman, Ben Hecht,
John Howard Lawson, John Lee Mahin,
Richard Maibaum &Budd Schulberg
Starring: Joel McCrea
Laraine Day
Herbert Marshall
George Sanders
Albert Basserman
Robert Benchley
Music by Alfred Newman
Cinematography Rudolph Maté
Editing by Dorothy Spencer
Distributed by United Artists
Release date 16 August 1940 (US)
11 October (UK)
Running time 120 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Foreign Correspondent is another of those lesser known Hitchcock films. It was released in 1940 and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture, but it has since been overshadowed by Hitch’s other film from 1940, Rebecca.

This is a brilliant spy thriller set in Europe just prior to the start of WWII. There is lots of rollicking action and intrigue and a few of Hitchcock’s set pieces that are excellent examples of film making. The scene where Van Meer is shot in the face is brilliant, as is the scenes involving the windmills and the plane crash at the films finale. However the most disarming thing about Foreign Correspondent are the scenes in which Edmund Gwenn, who in years to come would play Santa Claus in Miracle On 34th Street, playing a hired killer trying to murder Joel McCrea’s heroic Huntley Haverstock. It’s a great action movie, well worth watching.

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