--- title: "Foreign Correspondent" year: 1940 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/foreign-correspondent" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 74 critics_reviews: 10 published: "2026-09-20T00:16:41.550126+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T00:16:54.150665+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Foreign Correspondent (1940) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock · 2h 00m · Thriller, Mystery, Action **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 74 from 10 reviews *In a sentence:* A crime reporter is sent to cover the end of the world and keeps losing his hat > Hitchcock’s second American film is a chase across a Europe about to go dark, fast and funny and with three set pieces that people still copy. The middle idles and the last speech has dated. Worth your evening regardless. ## Synopsis New York, the summer of 1939. John Jones (Joel McCrea) is a crime reporter who knows nothing about Europe, which is why his publisher, Powers (Harry Davenport), sends him there: the foreign desk keeps filing economics, and he wants a man who will ask plain questions about whether there is going to be a war. Under a grander byline, Jones is dispatched to London to interview the Dutch diplomat Van Meer (Albert Bassermann), and falls in with Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall), who runs a peace organisation, and Fisher’s daughter Carol (Laraine Day), who takes an instant dislike to him. The story moves to Amsterdam, where on a rain-soaked flight of steps, under a crowd of umbrellas, a shot is fired, and Jones gives chase into flat Dutch farmland towards a windmill whose sails are turning against the wind. ## Review Alfred Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film was [*Rebecca*](https://film.one/film/rebecca), a slow gothic in a large house. *Foreign Correspondent*, made the same year, is the other Hitchcock, the one who likes an ordinary man in over his head and a joke in the middle of a murder. Joel McCrea’s John Jones is a New York crime reporter posted to Europe in the summer of 1939 because his publisher is sick of experts. It is a good, quick, funny 120 minutes with three sequences that have never gone out of fashion, a middle that idles, and a closing speech that belongs to 1940 alone. The sequences first. A man is shot on a flight of steps in Amsterdam, in pouring rain, and Rudolph Maté photographs it from above, so we see a field of black umbrellas and the killer’s escape is a ripple through them. We had seen the shot in stills a hundred times and it still made us sit up. The sound does it: one flat crack under the hiss of the rain, then the umbrellas moving the wrong way. Then a chase across flat country to a windmill whose sails turn against the wind, and inside it a wordless stretch of Jones on the stairs while Maté looks down through the wooden gears. The creak of the wheel does the work a score usually would, and Alfred Newman has the sense to stay out. Near the end comes a set piece aboard an aeroplane; what happens in it we will not say. McCrea is not Cary Grant, which is why he was cast. He plays Jones as a man who is good at his job and ignorant of everything else, which is the joke and the point: he asks the plain questions the diplomats have stopped asking. George Sanders, as the British reporter Scott ffolliott, is dry and quick and takes every scene he is let into. Herbert Marshall gives Stephen Fisher, who runs a peace organisation, a soft, tired courtesy. Albert Bassermann plays Van Meer, the Dutch diplomat, with a gentleness that makes his later scenes hard to sit through. Robert Benchley, as the paper’s London man, nurses a hangover and has the best lines. Edmund Gwenn turns up for ten minutes as Rowley, a cheerful Londoner hired to keep an eye on Jones. We laughed at him, at how chatty and pleased with himself he was, and a scene on top of a tower turned the laugh into something else, and we understood we had been set up. It is Hitchcock’s oldest trick. It still works. The weaknesses are in the writing. Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison and Richard Maibaum share the screenplay credit, and the romance between Jones and Laraine Day’s Carol Fisher reads as if none of them wanted it. He proposes marriage on a day’s acquaintance and the film treats this as a development rather than a symptom. Day is given nothing to do but be charmed, then hurt. The London stretch marks time in hotel corridors while the plot waits for Holland to matter again, and Dorothy Spencer’s cutting, sharp in the chases, goes slack there. The villains, Eduardo Ciannelli’s Krug among them, are never named as anything more specific than the enemy, which reads now as an odd politeness. The last two minutes are a speech into a microphone, aimed at America, and critics have winced at it since. We did, a little, and then we looked at the date. The film reached British cinemas on 11 October 1940, when London was being bombed nightly, and it was made to persuade a neutral country that Europe was worth the trouble. It is not subtle about this and, that year, had no reason to be. This sits below [*The 39 Steps*](https://film.one/film/the-39-steps) and [*The Lady Vanishes*](https://film.one/film/the-lady-vanishes), whose villains have faces. Anyone who knows [*North by Northwest*](https://film.one/film/north-by-northwest) will recognise the plan: a chase across a continent, danger in a flat open landscape where nothing should happen. That film is better. This one drew the map. Watch it on a wet evening, for the umbrellas and the windmill; forgive it the proposal; and stay for the aeroplane. *Fi1m score 76, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics enjoy Foreign Correspondent as a brisk espionage thriller and one of Hitchcock’s more assured early Hollywood films. The praise gathers around the set pieces: nearly every review names the Dutch windmill sequence, and the rain-soaked assassination under a sea of umbrellas and the effects-heavy plane crash also draw notice. Several see it as a rehearsal for the chase thrillers he made later, and the cast is consistently approved, with Joel McCrea’s mix of confidence and naivety and George Sanders, Edmund Gwenn and Herbert Marshall in support singled out. The reservations cluster at the ending. The patriotic finale strikes more than one critic as florid, and Time Out finds it embarrassing today and misses the cruelty and pessimism of Hitchcock’s other work. The spread is narrow, running from warm to enthusiastic, with the Los Angeles Times the lone mixed voice, calling it good rather than great and complaining of too much talk about patriotism. ### Reviews we read (10) - **The AV Club**, Ben Kenigsberg (A-): The critic finds the film spectacularly entertaining as a prime example of Hitchcock's breakneck travelogue thrillers and a dry run for later classics like North by Northwest. The rain-soaked assassination scene with the sea of umbrellas and other set pieces like the windmill and plane crash are highlighted as standout moments. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/criterion-makes-hitchcock-s-exciting-foreign-correspond-1798179524) - **The New Yorker** (90/100, inferred): The incidents are extraordinarily exciting and up-to-the-minute, dramatizing current news events as a perfect thriller with Fifth Columnists, assassinations, kidnappings, and a tremendous finale aboard a plane on the day war is declared. Hitchcock's unfailing contribution is the smooth piecing together of these elements. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1940/08/31/1940-08-31-051-tny-cards-000003201) - **Slant Magazine**, Jordan Cronk (80/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a key early Hollywood work that foreshadows Hitchcock's later style and scale through its ambitious production and memorable set pieces. The windmill chase, rooftop escape, and plane crash sequence are singled out as impressive examples of cinematic spectacle. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/foreign-correspondent/) - **The Guardian** (75/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a breathless yarn with serious intent that soars well beyond mediocrity but just below genius, and argues it deserves a place among Hitchcock's best. They single out its humour and brilliance in staging, along with its clear propagandistic purpose to inspire American audiences about events in Europe. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/aug/27/favourite-hitchcock-foreign-correspondent) - **Empire**, Kim Newman (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it highly-wrought entertainment in the vein of Hitchcock's other thrillers, with the hero getting into scrapes across London and Holland. They single out the windmill sequence, Edmund Gwenn's creepy cameo, and the effects-laden plane crash climax for praise. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/foreign-correspondent-review/) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film packed with romantic action, melodramatic hullabaloo, comical diversion, and an illusion of momentous consequence. It is high-geared entertainment for those who can take sensationalism without skepticism, with uniformly good cast and excellent photographic sequences like the Dutch windmill. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1940/08/28/archives/the-screen-at-the-rivoli.html) - **Time Out**, GA (70/100, inferred): Hitchcock's espionage thriller is a thoroughly enjoyable affair with memorable set pieces, even if the propagandistic finale feels embarrassing today and it lacks the director's usual cruelty or moral pessimism. McCrea and Day search out Nazi agents in London and Holland, with fine support from Sanders, Gwenn and Marshall. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/foreign-correspondent) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The story is essentially cops-and-robbers set against international political intrigue with a war flavor, though not a war picture, featuring mystery and intrigue. The cast is carefully selected and tops, with Joel McCrea blending self-confidence and naivete as the reporter-hero and strong support from the ensemble. [Read](https://variety.com/1939/film/reviews/foreign-correspondent-1200413046/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Mark Chalon Smith (50/100, inferred): It is a good movie but not great, part thriller and part propaganda with too much blabbing about patriotism at the florid ending. Several juicy Hitchcock set pieces stand out, including the striking windmill sequence involving the apparent murder of a Dutch diplomat. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-01-31-ca-1060-story.html) - **Collider**, Luc Haasbroek (80/100, inferred): The critic calls it a fast-moving political thriller that showcases Hitchcock's growing mastery of scale and momentum. It balances entertainment with a warning about the stakes of war and misinformation, earning notice even from Joseph Goebbels as effective propaganda. [Read](https://collider.com/best-1940-movies-classics/) ## Details - **Director:** Alfred Hitchcock - **Director:** Alfred Hitchcock - **Screenplay:** Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison, Richard Maibaum - **Cinematography:** Rudolph Maté - **Editor:** Dorothy Spencer - **Music:** Alfred Newman - **Producer:** Walter Wanger - **Cast:** Joel McCrea as John Jones; Laraine Day as Carol Fisher; Herbert Marshall as Stephen Fisher; George Sanders as Scott ffolliott; Albert Bassermann as Van Meer; Robert Benchley as Stebbins; Edmund Gwenn as Rowley; Eduardo Ciannelli as Mr. Krug - **Runtime:** 2h 00m - **Release (the US):** 16 August 1940 - **Genres:** Thriller, Mystery, Action - **Budget:** $1 million ## Where to watch in the US - The Roku Channel: free, hd - Tubi: free, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $19.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: CA, IT, NO, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1941: Best Art Direction, Black and White (nominated); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Special Effects (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated) ## If you liked this - *The Lady Vanishes* (1938), Fi1m 88: Hitchcock’s British run at the same trick, with a train and a sharper pair of leads. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lady-vanishes.md) - *The Third Man* (1949), Fi1m 92: Another innocent American in a European city where everyone knows more than he does. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-third-man.md) - *Charade* (1963): Donen borrows the Hitchcock plan wholesale and adds Paris, Hepburn and better clothes. - *Ministry of Fear* (1944): Fritz Lang’s wartime London, a cake at a fête, and a hero nobody believes. - *The Year of Living Dangerously* (1982): A foreign correspondent out of his depth, this time in Jakarta, with a better romance. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/foreign-correspondent