Before Pearl Harbor, the United States was supposedly neutral in World War Two, and movies reflected this. Though part of that may have been to sell American movies to overseas audiences (including Germany), another part was that the country was divided on the war in several different ways. After World War 1, most people in the United States were isolationists and believed the new war in Europe had nothing to do with us. We were not the world’s police, we did not owe any other country anything. Unless the United States was invaded, it wasn’t our war.
Even after Germany invaded Poland and six other countries in three short months and Japan invaded Manchuria, Americans were still divided into Isolationists and Interventionists. One group thought should stay out of the war entirely - after the bombing of Pearl Harbor many people *protested* that we should stay out of the war, and the other group thought we should stop Germany from taking over Europe.
One of the largest Isolationist groups was America First - a strange mix of 1940s left wing peaceniks and businessmen who wanted to sell things to Germany ... and some reputed pro-Hitler pro-Nazis Americans. Basically, anyone who wanted America to stay out of the European War for whatever conflicting reasons they may have had. The America First group grew in popularity just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, believing that sending military aid to England left the United States vulnerable to attack. Hollywood couldn’t ignore the war, so they made movies that either ignored both sides... or were strongly Isolationist or strongly Interventionist (depending on the politics of the producer and studio). Disney was an Isolationist and an America Firster and made cartoons against the United States entering the war. Other studios made films like A YANK IN THE RAF which seemed designed to show the brave British pilots fighting the evil other guys - the film still had to sell to Germany, right? Somewhere in here, the German Ambassador to the United States not only complained about these pro-Interventionist movies, but actually managed to get some studios to fire “non-Aryan” employees. Weird, huh?
A year before Fox made A YANK IN THE RAF, independent producer Walter Wanger, who flew fighter planes in World War 1, made FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT - a pro-intervention film that calls a Hitler a “Hitler”. A piece of pre-WW2 propaganda made long before Pearl Harbor and the rest of the Hollywood pro-Interventionist films that would follow. Wanger was Jewish, born in San Francisco, and one of the top producers in Hollywood. Also, a bit of a rable rowser - he made Fritz Lang’s YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (criminal leads), John Ford’s STAGECOACH, and after going to prison for shooting his wife’s lover he made Don Siegel’s RIOT IN CELL BOCK 11 (pro-prison reform). He was making edgy films before that phrase existed.
To direct FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT he rented Alfred Hitchcock from David O’Selznick - and Hitch brought his favorite writers and crew. Charles Bennet, who wrote Hitchcock’s first sound movie BLACKMAIL, as well as THE 39 STEPS. THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and five other Hitchcock films (plus many more screenplays you may know and love) and Joan Harrison who wrote five films for Hitchcock and went on to produce his TV show for a while and edit his fiction magazine and the short story collections. Both were British writers Hitchcock took with him when he came to America and both probably had family back in the UK in peril unless the United States joined the war. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT may have been pro-Intervention before any other film, but it was still a *Hollywood* movie, and profit came first. The film had to be a sell tickets, and lots of them.
Nutshell: Big city crime reporter Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) is sent to Europe to cover the biggest crime around - World War 2. The newspaper editor is tired of foreign correspondents who just print government press releases and wants a tough investigative reporter who won’t believe everything he’s told. Jones is introduced to Stephen Fisher (suave Herbert Marshall), head of a United Nations-like peace group who are trying to stop the war from escalating. The key man on the side of peace is Dutchman Van Meer - a kindly old man. Jones manages to share a cab with Van Meer on the way to a peace conference in London, thinking he’s going to get an exclusive interview - but Van Meer just talks about pigeons in the park (really). At the peace conference Jones flirts like crazy with a beautiful woman, Carol (Laraine Day), who ends up being Fisher’s daughter. But Van Meer ends up mysteriously called away before he can speak... he just vanishes.
Before Van Meer’s next speech, he is shot dead by an assassin, there’s a car chase, all kinds of twists and turns, and the discovery that Van Meer may still be alive - a double was shot - and the peace group may not be interested in peace at all. The other players in the story are British journalist ffoilliott (ultra suave George Sanders), always drunk UK desk reporter Stebbins (comedian and co-writer Robert Benchley), UK-based bodyguard Rowley (Edmund Gwenn), and creepy Fisher family friend Mr. Krug (Eduardo Ciannelli). The film is basically a globe trotting spy story, much like a James Bond film, which uses a lot of great locations and offers us some fantastic lessons on Set Pieces, Speeches, Gags, and Leading the Audience.
Hitch Appearance: Walking down the street past Jones when he hears Van Meer's name... and jogs back to split a cab with him and secretly pump him for information. Of course, he only gets pigeon talk.
Sound Track:Alfred Newman – a good score that works for the comedy aspects, the romance, and the suspense. In scenes like the windmill sequence that are mostly silent except for the background noise, the music is unobtrusive yet still adds to the suspense and tension. The main theme is kind of whimsical and works well with Joel McCrea's charming nice guy lead.
Bird Appearance: Van Meer goes on and on about the damned pigeons in the park. Also a great scene where Jones hides in Van Meer’s cell when the villains come in to question him... and Van Meer looks *right at him*! The villains look where Van Meer is looking... and see only a bird. Jones is hiding in the shadow behind the bird.
Hitch Stock Company: Hitchcock often used the same actors again and again in movies, and FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is no exception. Edmund Gwenn starred in THE SKIN GAME way back in 1931 and WALTZES FROM VIENNA in 1934 and would show up in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY in 1955 and do some work on the TV show, and Herbert Marshall starred in MURDER back in 1930 and did a few episodes of the TV series, and George Sanders was in REBECCA.
Experiment: Though some of the film takes place in London, the only experiment here is that this is Hitchcock’s first American film about Americans. REBECCA had a British cast, and once those soundstage doors were closed he might as well have been shooting it in England. But here we have a story about an American - a fish out of water in England and Europe... two places where Hitchcock would feel at home. So for Hitchcock part of the challenge was find a way to see locations that were familiar to him as an outsider would see them.
This was also a “loan out” movie - Hitch was under contract to Selznick, but Selznick was renting him out to other producers for a hefty fee and paying Hitchcock his normal salary... and pocketing the rest. This was discussed in more detail in the entry on THE PARADINE CASE. Selznick was famous for putting stars and directors under contract and then *not* making movies with them, but renting them out to other producers and making a pile of money. Though Selznick was a big name after GONE WITH THE WIND (which is still probably the #1 film of all time in ticket sales) he really didn't make many movies. Most of his income was probably from renting out people like Hitchcock.
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is a great example of Gags, Set Pieces, Speeches, and Leading The Audience. So those are the elements we will look at in this entry.
Gags: One of my favorite things about older films that we seem to have lost in current movies are *gags* - though gags don’t have to be funny (there are many serious gags and running gags in older movies) because Hitchcock had a great sense of humor, many of the running gags in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT are funny. Not laugh outloud funny, but a little smile that pops up in a few scenes.
When I say “gags” I don't mean jokes, like the newspaper managing editor (Harry Davenport) telling an editor watching the news wire not to declare war for a couple of minutes, I mean some physical or verbal bit that may be repeated throughout the story.
The first gag is all about names - the managing editor decides that “Johnny Jones” doesn’t sound dignified enough to be a foreign correspondent, so our hero is given the new name “Huntley Haverstock”. Every time people ask him his name, there’s a moment where he hesitates... and when he answers “Huntley Haverstock” they always give him a strange look. Sometimes he tries to explain that it isn’t his real name... and that’s what elevates this gag from just a gag: it is thematic. One of the elements in the film is that people are not who they claim to be or appear to be: every character seems to have a real identity underneath who they claim to be. So “Huntley” is really Johnny Jones, and a bodyguard is really an assassin and the peace organization’s PR gal is really the leader’s daughter and a homeless man is really an assassin and a trusted character is really the villain and Van Meer has a double who was killed and even “Old man Clarke” ends up being a hot single woman. Everyone in this film has a second identity, and all of that starts with the running gag about Johnny Jones getting a name change. Oh, and there’s ffoilliott’s name - which is a running gag in itself.
The next gag is Jones always losing his hat. There’s a great scene on the ship before it sales for England where Jones and all of his friends and family see him off. He’s going to a world at war, and they may never see him again. Everyone brings him gifts, including a bowler hat, which he models. When Jones takes off his hat to hug his mother for what may be the last time (a big moment) his little niece and nephew take turns trying on that hat and giggling. The great thing about this complete kid cuteness is that it’s *family* which amplifies Jones’s goodbye with his mother rather than distracting from it. When the whistle blows and all of the friends and family hurry off the ship before it sets sail... the little boy has the hat in his hand.
Throughout the film, Jones keeps losing his hat - and it’s not just a gag, it’s often an important part of the plot. Every time he checks his hat for a function or takes it off, it’s gone and must be replaced. But after chasing Van Meer’s assassin in Holland, and having the assassin's car just vanish near some windmills, Jones’ hat blows off across a field... and when he looks up he sees the sails of a windmill moving in the *opposite direction* as the wind. So the hat shows us the direction of the wind... before it lands in a stream and is ruined. Another hat falls off on the observation deck of Westminster Cathedral tower in London to show how far down it would be if Jones were pushed to his death (and then someone does that!). Later in the film Jones says he was “just talking through his hat” - the whole movie is about hats! Though it’s amusing every time Jones loses his hat, usually these errant hats also give us some story information at the same time. Both the name gag and the hat gag are not just amusing, they are critical parts of the story. They may have been *funny* but they were integral to the story as well.
Oh, and during that car chase there’s a drunk guy with a pint of beer in his hand who keeps trying to cross the street... but every time a car roars past. Finally he just turns around and goes back into the pub.
Another great running gag is the little Latvian man who seems to be at every function that Jones attends, but doesn’t speak a word of English and Jones (of course) speaks no Latvian. For some reason these two always end up hanging out together having a non-conversation (sort of miming) and like the lost hats and multiple identities, the little Latvian works his way into the story a few times. The great thing about this little guy is that he has the most expressive face of anyone I’ve ever seen on film - and manages to come up with the perfect expression to communicate whatever he can only say in Latvian. In one great scene there’s a knock on the door of Jones’ hotel room, and two men who claim to be the police want to take him downtown for questioning... except Jones slyly tests them, and they don’t seem to be police at all (more false identities) so he says he was just going to take a bath, and could they wait a moment? He goes into the bathroom, locks the door, turns on the water... and climbs out the window onto a very narrow ledge wearing only his robe and underpants!
A very tense scene as he moves along the ledge - birds getting in his way at one point - looking for an unlocked window. Finds one - Carol’s hotel room - and climbs into the bathroom. Carol has some people visiting in the living room, and eventually a guest finds Jones wearing only his bathrobe in the bedroom... and says something to Carol. Carol tells Jones he must leave the way he came before there’s a scandal, and that’s when the little Latvian guy sticks his head into the room, looks from Carol to Jones... and gives a mischievous smile. Soon all of the guests have left so that Jones and Carol can continue whatever they were (or weren’t) doing.
There’s a clever gag next, where Jones get his clothes out of the room with the two false policemen by calling every service in the hotel from maid to maintenance to room service to valet and has them all come up to the room at the same time - trapping the two false policemen - as a bribed bell hop grabs clothes from his closet and sneaks out in the confusion... neglecting to grab Jones’ hat, of course.
Another little one time gag is when a bodyguard hired to protect Jones turns out to really be an assassin trying to kill him... by pushing him off the Westminster Cathedral Tower... and the front page of the newspaper has an arrow showing the path of the victim on his way from the tower to the street. I guess those tabloids haven't changed much! Again – it's a newspaper reporter making the front page of the newspaper, and that's tied to story.
Set Pieces: The Cathedral Tower scene is one of several great set pieces in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, and this film (like THE 39 STEPS) seems to be a predecessor of the James Bond films and today's big summer tentpole action flicks. Hitchcock films always had big spectacle scenes – even the silent films! A set piece is a big exciting scene – in the studio days it was a scene so amazing that it was worth building a new set for, rather than just using an existing set on the back lot. Though not all set pieces actually meant building a new set, they were the huge spectacle scenes that would end up in the trailer... just like the big action scenes of today. If you think about those huge James Bond movie action scenes, that's what we're talking about... in the early 1940s.
Van Meer Assassination: Jones goes to an event in Holland where Van Meer is supposed to speak. There is a huge crowd outside the venue, even though it is raining. Dozens of reporters and photographers. Everyone has an umbrella... except Jones, who is in a trenchcoat. Jones has shared a cab with Van Meer previously and hopes to use this to his advantage and get an interview. He greets Van Meer, who just gives him a blank look as if he doesn't recognize Jones. Huh? Then a photographer asks to snap a photo of Van Meer... but there's a gun on the camera! When the flashbulb goes off, so does the gun! Van Meer is shot in the face and killed!
The Assassin runs into the crowd, and all we see are a sea of umbrellas moving as he makes his getaway. Jones gives chase – diving into the sea of umbrellas. Using the umbrellas as kind of a sea of tall grass that moves when the unseen assassin runs through is a great visual, and kind of the predecessor of those early scenes in JAWS where all we see are the barrels or the wake of the shark. It's *evocative* and interesting. A way to make a common chase uncommon and interesting. This is something we can use in our screenplays (I've used different versions in several screenplays – from tall grass rustling to a crowd being jostled). Find the creative and interesting way to write the scene!
The assassin blasts out onto a crowded street, Jones in pursuit. The assassin turns and fires his gun at Jones... killing a bike rider who comes between them for a moment. The assassin keeps firing – killing bystanders! There is a panic on the street. The assassin hops into a getaway car and zips off. Jones basically hijacks a car on the street, ordering the driver to follow the assassin's car. The driver of the car? British reporter ffoilliott (George Saunders) and Fisher's daughter Carol. They give chase – and we get a great car chase, with the assassin firing out the window at them. This chase on rainy streets would be at home in a current action flick – it's pretty exciting.
The chase ends when they lose the assassin's car on a deserted country road filled with windmills. This is where Jones' hat blows away... in the opposite direction than the sails of one of the windmills are turning. Something is strange with that windmill! While ffoilliott and Carol go to get the police, Jones sneaks into the dark windmill...
The Windmill Scene: Okay, they probably built the windmill set for this scene, since it's not likely they had one sitting around on the lot in Hollywood. Jones sneaks into the windmill, which is full of huge turning gears like an obstacle course of wooden teeth. Once Jones sneaks in, he realizes he is in the middle of terrorist central! The assassin is being debriefed in one area and other guys with guns are wandering around – it's like a James Bond scene where Bond sneaks into Blofeld's lair!
Jones hides behind the machinery... but his trenchcoat gets caught in the giant gears, pulling him into their teeth. He has to remain ultra-quiet (the terrorists are only a few feet away) and figure out how not to be ground to pieces. He manages to solve this problem, then climb to an upper room in the windmill... where he finds Van Meer. Wait – he's dead? Jones talks to him – discovers that a double was killed so that the villains would have time to drug and torture Van Meer in order to discover a secret clause in a peace treaty. Jones wants to help Van Meer escape, except for a couple of problems: Van Meer has been given a drug and is doped out of his mind... and the door opens and the terrorists come in! Jones climbs some stairs and hides... but he can't get away because he will make too much noise. So he's stuck halfway in and halfway out of the room.
The terrorists try to get Van Meer to talk – but he looks away... RIGHT AT JONES! Oh, and there's a freakin' bird flying around where Jones is hiding, not making it easy to be quiet. The terrorists turn to look at what Van Meer is staring at... and Jones moves back, hugging the wall, trying to blend with the shadows... and the bird flutters around and the terrorists think that's what Van Meer was looking at. Very tense scene!
But it keeps on going! One of the great things about all of these set pieces is that they have multiple suspense scenes in them and just keep ratcheting up the thrills. Jones manages to get up the stairs and out of the room where they have Van Meer hostage, but now the only way out of the windmill is to go down the stairs and across an exposed interior ramp... with the assassin and two men who are debriefing him *right there*. He waits in the shadows, and when the assassin pulls a sweater over his head – covering his face for a moment – Jones zips across the ramp to the shadows on the other side. Another great suspense bit... and a great idea. How many times have you pulled a sweater or sweat shirt over your head and been “blind” for a second or two? Using that in a suspense scene is genius!
Jones manages to escape, but when he returns later with the police, Van Meer is gone and all evidence that he was ever there has vanished. Jones goes to show the police the car they chased, opens a barn door to expose... an old hay wagon. The police are skeptical. But foilliot notes a homeless guy who was sleeping in the windmill as he rubs dirt on his very clean hands – that's no homeless guy! By the time, the police don't believe anything they say and leave...
Cathedral Tower: Once back in London, Fisher advises Jones that with his life in danger it would be a good idea to hire a professional bodyguard. Jones thinks this is crazy – he's a crime beat reporter who is used to danger. But by this is the father of the woman he loves, so he agrees. The bodyguard is Rowley (Edmund Gwenn) a little man in a bowler hat. When he thinks they are being followed by another car, he has their cab pull over in front of Westminster Cathedral and tells Jones they can lose whoever is following them by going up to the tower – which is open to tourists. Once they get up there, it's obvious that Rowley is not a bodyguard, but an assassin out to kill Jones. There is a great suspense scene on the observation deck of the tower – a group of school kids with a priest on a field trip of some sort, a husband and wife, and some other tourists look out over London from the extreme height... and we know the moment that Rowley and Jones are alone, Jones is going to get thrown over the side to the street hundreds of feet below. Splat! So we get an interesting version of the “ticking clock” - as each tourist leaves, we are closer to Jones' death! Part of the suspense comes from Jones wanting to leave – and Rowley finding some new landmark for him to look at from the tower. Just as the last tourist leaves, the elevator doors open with a husband and wife. The husband wants to look over the ledge, the wife is afraid of heights. Rowley manages to talk her into insisting that her husband leave with her... and that means finally Jones and Rowley are alone, and Jones is going to be thrown over the side to the street below!
This is where we get that tabloid newspaper front page with the arrows showing the path of the guy who fell to his death.
Captured! After several plot twists and some detective work, ffoilliott and Jones find the house where they are keeping Van Meer in London... but everything goes completely wrong when they go to rescue him and they are captured. It's a great reversal. In this scene they torture Van Meer to get the information about the secret clause, and because this is a 1940s movie where they couldn't pull a HOSTEL and use some power tools on the old guy, they do something very clever. They prepare to torture Van Meer, and the camera pans away to the other terrorists... who look away in HORROR as Van Meer screams off screen. Whatever they are doing to him, it makes the bad guys want to puke. There's an action scene here where they rescue Van Meer, but the cool thing is a “How Did They Do That?” shot of ffoilliott jumping out a window, and in one shot (no cuts) we see him fall out a window, rip through an awning, and race down the sidewalk. And it's George Sanders – movie star – not some stuntman. How did they do it? Well, it was an articulated dummy that goes out the window and rips through the awning, and the ripped awning covers the dummy as Sanders races out and down the sidewalk – his face right there for the camera to see. These are the kind of imaginative tricks that didn't cost a lot of money, but just looked amazing on camera. You could do them today in a low budget film.
Plane Shot Down: The ultimate set piece in this film is a Pan Am Airliner from London to the USA being shot down. This is one of the greatest scenes in cinema, and was swiped by Robert Zemeckis for CASTAWAY. One of those “How Did They Do That?” scenes. Jones and ffoilliott are in the coach section of the plane, Fisher and Carol are in the first class section, when an enemy battleship starts firing at them! This is a passenger plane! The plane is hit and starts going down... and we end up with a full scales disaster movie that rivals anything Hollywood has put out since. Not some little scene, this is massive. First we have the drama of the plane being fired on, when the United States is not involved in the war at this time – we are supposed to be neutral. People on the plane are *complaining* instead of panicking... until the plane gets hit and starts to go down. You know those live vests that are supposed to be under your seat in case of the unlikely event of a water landing? People are grabbing them, because they are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. One woman says that she refuses to put on the life jacket, they're silly... and then is shot dead when the enemy ship continues to fire on them! Okay – panic in the passenger section...
In the cockpit – the two pilots try their best to land the plane on the water, but they know it's not going to be a Miracle On The Hudson – they are coming in too fast. Now we get one of the most amazing shots in cinema history: without a cut, we are in the cockpit – water coming closer and closer and closer – and then we hit the water... and the cockpit window shatters and water rushes inside the cockpit and floods the interior. No cuts. Way before CGI and any type of FX that can make fake water look real. What you see on film actually happened! Sort of. The cockpit window was a movie screen that they showed the ocean getting closer and closer on. So you could see the pilots in the cockpit and the ocean getting closer all in the same shot. Then, without cutting, the plane hits the water and it bursts through the window. Okay, we have that movie of the ocean getting closer – and the movie projected on the window/screen shows them *hitting the water*... and that's when they empty a freakin' tank of water through the window – ripping the screen (as if it's glass) and flooding the cockpit. All one shot – no cuts!
Hey, but that's still the beginning of the sequence!
The whole interior of the plane floods! As the water rises, passengers have to find pockets of air near the ceiling as they make their way to the back of the plane (where there is more air... for now). Our four characters and all of the others struggle to get out of the plane. Doors are jammed. They find suitcases and slam them against a window until they break it... then they have to climb out – careful of the jagged glass and the crashing waves – to the roof of the plane. Some passengers die. Carol almost gets washed away as she climbs out – some stuntwoman was probably bruised badly, slammed against the side of the plane by the waves and almost torn off the side into the ocean (some huge water tank at the studio). The handful of survivors (including our four) get to the top of the plane...
Hey, but there's still more to come!
They realize the body of the plane is sinking, but one of the wings – which has been torn off during impact – is still floating. So they dive onto the wing before the plane body sinks! Most of them have to swim to the wing, and not all of them make it. The ocean is a volcano of waves. Our four and some others make it onto the wing... and the wing begins to sink! Too many people!
Then some other stuff happens...
Speeches: I probably have some Script Tip where I warn against speeches in screenplays. It's not that speeches are *bad*, it's that much of the time what a writer has isn't really a speech, it's just some guy talking forever with no one replying. It's supposed to be a conversation, supposed to be *dialogue*, but ends up one person talking. An actual speech is fine – as long as it's exciting enough to sustain its length. The soliloquy from HAMLET? Great speech! Write something like that and everyone will love it. That speech about the gold watch in PULP FICTION? Amazing! Write something like that and people will call you a genius. But just some boring stuff that drags on and on? No thank you. Bores the crap out of me in real life, and isn't any more exciting on screen... in fact – it's worse.
But FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT has some great speeches. The first great speech is from Carol, and it's part of a great example of leading the audience. When Jones meets Carol, he thinks that she's the PR Girl for Fisher's Peace Group and flirts with her like crazy. When the meeting begins, he tells her to come and sit with him at the press table where they can talk – no one wants to listen to the boring speeches. She sits at the dais in the front of the room near Fisher. Jones keeps sending her notes – trying to pick her up. When the meeting starts, Fisher notes that Mr. Van Meer was called away, but his daughter will be making the keynote speech in his absence. And we see the woman sitting to Fisher's left:
As Fisher continues to talk about his daughter and her qualifications, we keep seeing this woman to his left... and Jones realizes they are in for one heck of a boring speech and tunes out... But when Fisher is finished, the woman to his left starts to stand... but it's just repositioning herself in her chair... and Carol stands. This is a great example of leading the audience – we are sure that the woman to Fisher's left is his daughter, so when Carol stands it's a twist. But the writers had to *create* that woman to Fisher's left to lead us in the wrong direction. Without that woman, it would have been obvious that Carol was his daughter – no other woman on the dais in the right age range. An important part of screenwriting is leading the audience – creating the characters and situations that will make the reader/viewer jump to the wrong conclusion so that the actual conclusion is unexpected. Leading the audience astray is part of our job. If we didn't have that woman who was *not* Fisher's daughter sitting to his left, the scene would have been boring and obvious. This way, Carol being Fisher's daughter is a little twist.
To the speech – Carol stands to make her speech and sees Jones starring at her with puppy-dog eyes and it breaks her concentration... so she works off her notes. Except 50% of her note cards are from Jones asking her out in amusing ways! So she fumbles some more before getting on track with her speech – which uses some of the things that Jones said to her as examples of why they need a Peace Group. This becomes the “mission statement” for Fisher's group, so that we understand why an organization dedicated to peace is needed in this time of impending war. Using some of the things Jones said, makes the speech amusing – and in some ways part of the love story subplot. The speech is over before you know it, and very entertaining.
There's also a little speech by Van Meer in the taxi-cab ride about people feeding the pigeons in the park that is about how those seemingly boring parts of every day life are really what is important.
A great story decisions happens 59 minutes into the film. There is a plot twist and one of the characters we think is a good guy is secretly one of the bad guys. Now, any time the *hero* talks about how bad the badguys are, how they are morally corrupt, etc, it's just going to sound like a bunch of On The Nose speechifying. So the writers give this speech to... the secret bad guy! *We* know they are bad by this point, so while this villain is talking about how vile and evil the villains are, he is really talking about himself. That makes it ironic and interesting – and yet we still get that speech about how bad the badguys are. A great have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too situation, and it actually helps to shade the secret bad guy character! What could have been trite becomes fascinating. I think this is a great technique to put in your toolbox – have the secret villain talk about the villains instead of the hero.
One hour and thirty one minutes in, there's a speech by Van Meer and Fisher and his peace group. It's right before he's tortured, and the situation makes the speech work. If the villains are torturing a man to talk and he gives a great speech, we are cheering for him.
Eight minutes later the secret bad guy is caught and confesses to the people who trusted him – and the confession is emotional. All about having to live a secret life and lie to people who care about him. It's an apology and a confession all rolled into one... and might make you cry. Hey, it's also really some exposition about why he was secretly a bad guy... but you may be a little misty eyed and not realize that.
There's also a fairly clever bit where Jones has been rescued and is on an American ship – they are forbidden to give any information to the press, but are allowed to call a family member to tell them that they are okay. Jones calls his editor – pretending it's his Uncle – and then has what seems to be a conversation with the ship's captain that is really Jones dictating the story to the editor on the other end of the open phone line. This is a big pile of exposition, but because it is being done in a sly and clever way we laugh at the big blocks of facts – Jones is sneaking them right past the ship's captain!
The last speech is a rousing patriotic “let's get in there are fight the Nazis” pro-war speech. Totally political. The producer obviously though we should intervene and help Europe fight the Nazis... and that's the background of the story... but made very clear at the end. Jones is doing a radio broadcast from London when a bombing raid has the radio station people ordering him to the bomb shelter – but he refuses and continues his broadcast to America. When the lights in the radio station go out, he says the lights have gone out here in Europe, but they are shinning bright in America, and we need to bring our light to the rest of the world where it's needed. This speech is so well written you want to enlist! And that is the key to speeches in screenplays – they have to be *great*. They have to rival that HAMLET speech. They have to be as funny and fascinating as that Gold Watch speech from PULP FICTION. The speech itself must be entertaining and amazing – and any spare word needs to be cut.
Human Villain:
One of the great things that happens with the secret bad guy in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is that once he has been revealed to the audience we get to see how difficult his decisions are – his actions are against his country and that makes them against some of the country members who are his friends in the film. His actions will hurt people he cares about... and that makes his decisions very difficult to make at times. He is not an evil villain, he is a guy with different political beliefs than those around him who is trying to do what he believes to be the right thing... even though we see that it is wrong. It's important to make sure your villain isn't some cardboard cut-out Snidely Whiplash human cartoon, but a real person. Real people are more frightening than 2D obviously fake villains.
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is a fun action thriller that holds up pretty well after all of these years. The characters are engaging and the situations are filled with suspense and a fair amount of humor. All of this, and I never mentioned Robert Benchley's shtick – he plays the previous foreign correspondent to spends his time drinking to excess and whoring around and sending the government's press releases with his name on them as his stories to the newspaper... and his on the wagon and forced to drink milk throughout the film. He has an amusing phone conversation where he says the same phrase again and again, with different emphasis – so it's like a whole conversation using the same words. Lots of fun stuff I couldn't get to in these 6,750 words!
- Bill
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