Hitchcock is the master, no matter what subject matter. He did have a propensity for spy stuff, however. In this one, the U.S. has not entered the war. Joel McRae is a foreign correspondent who gets in thick with a man who is a pacifist. He is led into a web of intrigue with murders and murder coverups. Identity and mistaken identity. Love for real and love for convenience. It also has the great Hitchcock method of using famous landmarks for things to happen. In this case it is Westminster Abby. It's a buffet of wonderful visual delights, including the incredible umbrella scene. Don't miss this.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is the second film of Hitchcock's one-two punch in 1940, yet its legacy has been mostly eclipsed by the more widely-beloved REBECCA (1940, 8/10), which usurped a BEST PICTURE win in the Oscar games, while the former is also a BEST PICTURE nominee with a total 6 nominations. In retrospect, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT may be a lesser compelling romance due to the insipid chemistry from its two leads, but no doubt it is a top-notch spy thriller from the master of suspense, with a trio of upstaging supporting players (Bassermann, Marshall and Sanders), plus its FX are rather cutting-edge at its time, a distinguishing precursor of the similar themed NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959, 8/10), which would arrive nearly 2 decades later. Johnny Jones (McCrea), under the pen name Huntley Haverstock, is appointed as the new foreign correspondent by New York Globe, arrives in Netherland to get a clear picture of the impending war. Soon he witnesses a staged (fake) assassination of Dutch diplomat Van Meer (Bassermann), whereas the real Van Meer is drugged and kidnapped out of the country. Jones becomes the man who knows too much and is chased by unnamed killers, escaped to London with Carol (Day) to her father Stephen Fisher (Marshall), a leader of a peace party, the romance is budding but viewers will realise Mr. Fisher is a fellow conspirator of the kidnap. In no time Jones falls upon as a target of a murdering plan, this is where Hitchcock is at his best, however illogical it seems in the script, an unbeknownst Jones visits the Westminster Cathedral tower with his "bodyguard" Rowley (Gwenn), designated by Fisher to dispatch Jones, Hitchcock ingeniously plays with audience's anticipation of the approaching danger, generates a frisson of thrill combined with priceless gallows humour although we all evidently aware that Jone's narrow escape is the default upshot.German stage actor Albert Bassermann is honoured with an Oscar nomination as the upstanding diplomat under interrogation for war information, incredibly is that he doesn't speak English, all his lines are uttered with phonetic assist, and the final outcome is a heart- rending one, boosted by his self-revealing contempt to the war through the bird-feeding people metaphor, which first time it is casually articulated like an evasive strategy to Jones' slack pestering, but the second time, under the severe mental torture, its becomes a meaningful and encouraging enlightenment. Herbert Marshall is on an equal footing in his two-faced suaveness, his aloofness contends to be a requisite for a spy, he knows his undoing is forthcoming, even at his remorseful eleventh hour, he maintains his dignity and doesn't descend to desperate malignancy. George Sanders, who also stars in REBECCA, brings his usual conceited mien to the role of Scott ffolliott (the capital letter in his surname was dropped in memory of an executed ancestor), another report who is considerably more sharp-witted in the line of work. All above only makes both McCrea and Day too broad and bland in their gauche leading parts. A revelational discovery is near the ending, Hitchcock and his crew mounts a totally engaging scenario with plane crush-landing on the sea surface, in light of its time of making, its persistent impact remains surprisingly unabated. So in a nutshell, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT may not be the crème de la crème among Hitcock's oeuvre, certainly it doesn't tarnish his reputation either, and fairly speaking, its spy tall-tale is far more engrossing than most of the products in this long-running genre still flourishing today

Ignorant American reporter Joel McCrea (John Jones) is given the pseudonym Huntley Haverstock and sent on a mission to Amsterdam to get a story about politician Albert Bassermann (Van Meer) and obtain some news about the impending war in Europe. Well, he certainly gets involved. Can he live to tell what he knows? The film is a little too long, and the first half an hour is pretty boring. We then get some tense scenes, starting with a shooting. At last, some suspense. Unfortunately, the realism of the film is sloppy at this point. For example the victim's killer would have been caught about 20 times over. Also, the killer's getaway car would not just have disappeared like that on a large empty road, given that the pursuers had the car in sight. Another instance of stupidity occurs at this point in that the bad guys don't seem to be looking out for the car that has been chasing them. These villains are cretinously stupid not to have someone pick up that McCrea is snooping around the windmill. He stands out like a sore thumb.Another memorable section sees hit-man Edmund Gwenn (Rowley) bide his time and attempt his murderous instructions on McCrea. He has a couple of goes. And while these are suspenseful, Gwenn plays for comedy so it's never quite effective. And that's a problem with this film, there is far too much light-heartedness (eg, the Latvian bloke) which takes away any real danger.George Sanders (ffolliott) turns up after the first boring half an hour that wasn't necessary and immediately becomes the best of the cast. In fact, the lead man McCrea completely disappears from the proceedings after about two thirds of the film and we follow Sanders as he unravels and solves the whole mystery. By himself. McCrea wasn't needed – Sanders even already knew about wealthy aristocratic Herbert Marshall (Fisher).The film does have two other memorable sequences. The first is the sea of umbrellas as the assassin makes his getaway – very creative. The other is what elevates this film to the score I have given it – namely, the whole plane crash episode. I found this particularly eerie given the current explanation of what happened to that Air Malaysia plane recently. The one that just disappeared. There is real footage of the view that the pilots would have had as the plane dives towards the sea. We then get the water pouring in and a frightening aftermath. Maybe the passengers were already dead come the impact in the real life situation. Still, it made me think and go all sombre about it.Unfortunately, this film lacks something. Oh yeah, Hitchcock is easy to spot in this one, so keep an eye out near the beginning.

This rather unconvincing Hitchcock film was clearly made with a war-rousing purpose, and the end credits feature the American anthem 'The Star Spangled Banner' being sung with great gusto. The aim was to try to persuade a reluctant American public to enter the war against Hitler. The story is intended to glorify American foreign correspondents who are bringing the truth home to the American public about the horrendous events in Europe. However, the story line somewhat belies this theme, because the New York editor is frustrated that the existing foreign correspondents are no good, and in desperation he seeks for a crime reporter with no knowledge of foreign affairs whatever to be sent to Europe to try to get the facts. The reporter in question has to his credit that he recently knocked out a policeman in pursuit of a crime story, and he is expecting to be sacked at any moment. Step forward, Joel McCrea, a droll but earnest leading man ready to blunder his way through complexities and ready to love Laraine Day as soon as he meets her. So he gets the job and sails to England where he commences uncovering the dastardly actions of Gestapo spies, and immediately he becomes entangled with them. There are numerous trademark Hitchcock touches in the film. On a visit to the Netherlands (when will people stop calling it Holland, as Holland is merely a single province of the Netherlands and not the name of the country?) McCrea is chasing some Nazis spies, who then disappear into a windmill. McCrea notices that the sails of the windmill keep reversing the direction of their turning. They are clearly on a motor, and this is a signal to a plane to land to pick up the spies. McCrea also escapes from a hotel room by edging along the balcony high above the street, another perilous scene of the kind Hitchcock loved. But the most harrowing of all the scenes in this film is when McCrea, Day, Herbert Marshall and others are all flying on the clipper to America from London on the day war breaks out between Britain and Germany, and a German naval ship shoots down their plane. The plane crashes into the sea and a few of then cling to a floating wing. It is all very convincing and impressive. So, as I have said, there are 'moments' in this film which are up to standard, but the film as a whole is a bit thin. Robert Benchley appears throughout the film as the incompetent regular foreign correspondent, and makes wisecracks and wry observations, such as: 'I send the press releases back to New York and they pay me a salary,' or words to that effect, a practice not unknown today.