Foreign Correspondent

(Alfred Hitchcock, US 1940, 120 min., DCP)

Alfred Hitchcock’s second American film—like his first—was released by United Artists, this time under producer Walter Wanger. Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) is sent to Europe by his newspaper editor to get the real story behind the approaching Nazi conflict. Contacting a Dutch diplomat who has memorized a key clause in the Allied peace treaty, Jones is thrust into international intrigue as the enemy closes in. Both the umbrella-strewn assassination scene and the visceral plane crash are memorable Hitchcock sequences nearly eighty years later.