Review – Foreign Correspondent

Though a propaganda movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock isn’t automatically radically better than any other propaganda movie, this is still a reasonably entertaining production. Sent to Amsterdam by his employer, a wise-cracking Chicago street reporter (Joel McCrea) finds himself caught up in a kidnapping plot by a “peace organization” that’s actually a front for German intelligence. And of course it doesn’t help that he falls in love with a woman (Laraine Day) whose father may be at the heart of the whole mess. The story features several of Hitchcock’s famous twists, particularly the innocent man who can’t get anyone to believe him (though the tale goes to a few unbelievable extremes to keep up the shtick). But the real appeal isn’t the Europe-centered drama but the thinly-veiled insult directed at Nazi sympathizing organizations in the United States (this was 1940, after all). Worth seeing