Foreign Correspondent re-viewed & Mr and Mrs Smith noted

 Back in 2012 I wrote a post on my favourite Hitchcockmovies. I came across it again this morning after checking to see if I’d ever mentioned Foreign Correspondent, which stars Joel McCrea and Laraine Day, and was released early in 1940, in this blog. I had, with fondness.

I watched the movie on You Tube last night (Spanish subtitles included) and it remains an absorbing movie - with some absurdities. Not unusual for Hitchcock. Though it was shot in the States, it has a large cast of Brits; many of them had been in Hollywood for some years. The movie shifts from the US to Holland to London and back. It’s full of studio ‘exteriors’ - most of them wonderfully done, like the full-scale windmill set against a painted backdrop of the Dutch countryside, and of course, the ocean in the climax of the movie.

I mentioned in my previous post that there was a great scene shot from above of dozens of umbrellas, with the hero hiding amongst them. In fact, it’s an assassin who escapes through them, causing first one umbrella then another to shift in what is otherwise a settled sea of covers. The assassination scene is brilliant: first there’s the odd meeting of McCrea with ‘Van Meer’ who for some reason doesn’t recognise him; it’s only later we understand that it’s a stand-in lookalike for the old peacemaker, a stand-in who gets shot for his pains. 'Van Meer' tumbles down the steps while the assassin, supposedly a photographer, smashes his camera to the ground and begins his escape. This involves other people getting shot in a busy street, cars and trams everywhere, mothers, children, and George Sanders (playing the absurdly-named ffolliott – his name is given an equally absurd explanation) who happens to have Laraine Day in his car, and who then gives chase with McCrea on board.

The subsequent car chase is both full of Hitchcock humour and real suspense. In one completely irrelevant scene, an old Dutchman is trying to cross the road. A car comes whizzing round the corner. He steps back, tries again. Same result. Beautifully-timed, as an increasing number of vehicles appear, and the man narrowly avoids being hit time and again before giving up.

This all leads to a long sequence in which McCrea investigates people doing skulduggery inside the windmill. He continually managing to stay just out of sight – even though at one point his overcoat gets caught in the machinery. He manages to get himself out of it just before it’s chewed up.

There’s a great deal else that’s excellent – the plane crash into the sea that occurs at the end is terrific, and the way various unnamed actors have their moment in the limelight both in this scene and in others. Or the attempted murder up on a very high church tower. This one has a troupe of schoolboys involved for a minute or two, adding to the edginess of what’s about to happen – especially as there’s a broken bit of tower off to one side waiting to be repaired.

In a much earlier scene Hitchcock has a couple of children jokingly stealing the hero’s hat. It occurred to me that in his early films in the US he still had children involved as he had in his British movies. Often they were quite forward children, like the strong-minded Dutch girl in this movie, who translates McCrea’s English to the police. They were often relaxed about doing things adults would have a fit seeing them do these days. But in his later US movies, it’s rare to see a child. Apart from The Trouble With Harry, which features a young boy who finds the body, there isn’t any of the same ilk as the earlier kids.

Anyway, thank you, You Tube, and the people who upload older movies. Especially when the copies are as clean and bright as when they were first shown.

Poster for the film courtesy of The Criterion Collection 

Update 12.3.24: I found that Hitchcock's Mr and Mrs Smith is also available (sans subtitles) on You Tube, and watched it last night. By all accounts it was done more as a courtesy to the female star, Carole Lombard, than because Hitchcock was desperate to do it. And why would he be? It was so far out his normal range that it's not surprising it comes across as competently-directed but little else. 

The script is funny-ish, but not outstanding; Lombard and her co-star, Robert Montgomery expend a great deal of energy, but the thing rarely lights up. One of the few scenes that made me laugh involved Gene Raymond, who, on discovering that the other two are technically not married because of a legal glitch, makes his play for Lombard. He gets a cold, Lombard plies him with whiskey, and the result is a man who, being teetotal normally, suddenly walks and talks like an automaton, sits by bending the wrong bits first, stands likewise, and on going to step up from one level to another notes that his foot decides this isn't a good idea. Raymond plays it for all its worth. 

It's not that Hitchcock couldn't do comedy - most of him films have comic scenes or characters - but the 'screwball comedy' type of movie just wasn't up his alley.