2024 movie #51. 1940. A young reporter (McCrea) is sent to England to report on coming war news. He falls for a young Englishwoman (the charming Day) and helps uncover a Nazi spy ring. Great Hitchcock film with humor and excitement, including a plane crash at sea. ( )

Johnny Jones is an action reporter on a New York newspaper. The editor appoints him European correspondent because he is fed up with the dry, reports he currently gets. Jones' first assignment is to get the inside story on a secret treaty agreed between two European countries by famous diplomat Mr. Van Meer. However things don't go to plan and Jones enlists the help of a young woman to help track down a group of spies. (fonte: Imdb)

Poco prima dello scoppio della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, un giovane giornalista americano scopre un complotto con a capo del complotto un finto pacifista inglese, in realtà gerarca nazista. (fonte: Wikipedia)

1940 black & white Hitchcock WWII spy film. Film was a nominee for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture (lost to Hitchcock's "Rebecca"), Screenplay, Art Direction, Editing, and acting nominee award for Basserman.

DVD Features: The DVD contains the movie, and some special features. The movie can be heard in English and read (subtitles) in English, French, or Spanish. There are two special features: 1) "Personal History: Foreign Hitchcock" (biography of Hitchcock and some information on the film and others (including producer, Walter Wager, somewhat unknown now, but he was behind many important films, like "Stagecoach," Wager had the film writes to a book called "Personal History" 1935 and started to make a film loosely based on it, but eventually Hitchcock's film ended up having nothing to do with the prior scripts or book; Hitchcock - who moved to California in 1939 with his family to make the film "Rebecca")), and 2) Theatrical Trailer.

Credits: The movie stars Joel McCrea (Jeffrey or Johnny Jones; "The Virginian") "with" Laraine Day (Carol Fisher; "Tycon"), Herbert Marshall (Stephen Fisher; "The Fly"), George Sanders (Scott ffolliott; "The Quiller Memorandum"), Albert Basserman (Van Meer; "Madame Curie"), Harry Davenport (Mr. Powers; "The Thin Man Goes Home"), and Robert Benchley (Stebbins; "Nice Girl?"). The movie is directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay was written by Charles Bennett ("The Lost World") and Joan Harrison ("Rebecca"), and the dialogue is credited to James Hilton (for British language) and Robert Benchley (for some humor). Music by Alfred Newman.

Plot: A young American reporter is assigned to Europe to investigate war rumors. While there he stumbles across a spy ring in Amsterdam.

Review: The first impression of the film, even before I noticed that it was a black & white movie, is created the great music. The movie is dedicated to the "Foreign Correspondents." The movie opens in the USA Globe newspaper office. The editor or publisher (Mr. Powers) is tired of the very poor foreign correspondents currently working in Europe. Mr. Powers decides to send over a young reporter, Jeffrey Jones (later renamed to Huntley Haverstock by his boss), to dig up news (Mr. Powers: "I don't want correspondence. I want news"). First assignment: go to Holland to see what a Mr. Van Meer ("strongman of Holland") has to say about a treaty between Holland and Belgium. First mystery, Jones arrives at a conference riding in a taxi cab with Van Meer, but when the speeches begin, the head guy announces that Van Meer was not able to attend. Second mystery, who attempted to create the image that Van Meer has been assassinated Van Meer and why. Third mystery, the strange nature of the windmill that seems able to turn in the opposite direction of the wind and might be a method of sending signals.

Interesting, even films made in English end up with different spoken English and written English (subtitle) dialogue. At the going away party that Jeffrey Jones throws for himself on board his ship, he is trying on a hat and asks his mother what she thinks of it. She notes that she likes it, but not to wear it over one eye because that will make him look like a: 1) spoken: "gangster"; 2) subtitle: "dandy."

For some reason I had not heard of Joel McCrea before now, but he is very good in this film. Apparently, McCrea appeared in at least ninety movies. The film is quite good (though the USA national anthem playing at the end was a little over-the-top), exciting, tense, good strong plot, and with some elements of humor (some of the humor is created just by the manner of the British speech patterns; another humorous element is Jones inability to keep a hat) and romance (rather quickly moving romance). Overall, I would give the movie 4.35 stars. ( )

I denne Hitchcock-filmen fra 1940 blir en journalist sendt fra USA til Europa under falsk identitet rett før utbruddet av andre verdenskrig.

Umiddelbart etter ankomsten blir utenrikskorrespondenten vitne til et mord på en nederlandsk diplomat. Og dermed trekkes han inn i førkrigstidens største spionsak.

Det er sagt om filmen at den skal ha vært medvirkende til at USA ble med i krigen.

Det er alltid fornøyelig å se slike gamle filmer! Biljaktene i denne filmen er bleke skygger av biljaktene i dagens moderne filmer, og skurkene er enda mer skurkaktige, på grensen til det karikerte. Som de fleste storfilmer - også fra 40-årene - inneholder filmen selvsagt en søt kjærlighetshistorie. Dette er et stykke filmhistorie av den nostalgiske sorten! ( )