Oscar®-nominated supporting actor Albert Bassermann had migrated from European films to Hollywood features beginning in 1938. His director friend Ernst Lubitsch had encouraged the move, and Bassermann had already appeared in the Warner Bros. film Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940) before acting in Foreign Correspondent. What makes these roles remarkable is the fact that Bassermann could not speak English, and was reciting his lines phonetically!

Alfred Hitchcock's traditional director cameo in Foreign Correspondent occurs roughly thirteen minutes into the film, during the scene in which Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) leaves his hotel and notices Van Meer (Albert Bassermann) getting into a waiting car. Hitchcock is seen walking on the street (actually in front of a process screen) in a hat and coat, reading a newspaper.

Alfred Hitchcock made Foreign Correspondent on loan-out from his regular employer, David O. Selznick. The producers contemplated a twelve-week schedule from start to finish, but the assignment ultimately lasted thirty weeks. This gave Selznick a gross profit of $54,000 - just for loaning out his contract director. Hitchcock fumed at the disparity, and stalled on accepting any new assignments on loan-out - that is, until Selznick gave the director a $5,000 bonus from the Wanger deal. Hitchcock still rankled, though, privately referring to the payment as a contribution to the "Fund for Starving Hitchcocks."

Owing to the wartime themes, it was several years after the end of WWII before Foreign Correspondent was shown in Germany. Demand for Hitchcock product was strong following the release of Psycho (1960), so in 1960 the movie was distributed by Constantin Film in West Germany. Even so, a full 22 minutes were cut. The uncut version of Foreign Correspondent was not officially shown in Germany until 1995.

B>Foreign Correspondent co-screenwriter Charles Bennett had a long career as an actor, playwright and primarily, a screenwriter. After his play Blackmail was adapted to film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1929, he began his long relationship with the director which included the adaptation for The 39 Steps (1935) and the screenplays for Secret Agent (1936), Sabotage (1936), and Young and Innocent (1937). He collaborated with Cecil B. DeMille on the films Unconquered (1947), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), and Reap the Wild Wind (1942). Bennett wrote the screenplay for the highly regarded thriller Night of the Demon (1957), directed by Jacques Tourneur, and closed out his career with an almost exclusive relationship with future "disaster movie" producer Irwin Allen, writing such films as The Story of Mankind (1957), The Lost World (1960), and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

Foreign Correspondent co-screenwriter Joan Harrison began a long career in the film industry when she was hired as Alfred Hitchcock's secretary in 1933. Soon she became a "reader," searching through books and other properties for suitable screen material, writing synopses, and also contributing to scripts. Harrison worked as Hitchcock's assistant when he arrived in Hollywood, and contributed to the screenplays of Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), and Saboteur (1942). Harrison was hired as a producer at Universal Pictures and RKO, and was responsible for such films as Phantom Lady (1944), They Won't Believe Me, and Ride the Pink Horse (both 1947). As a result, she was one of only three women to work as a major studio producer during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She later rejoined her mentor and produced the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents from 1955 to 1962.

Famous Quotes from FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

Mr. Powers (Harry Davenport): I could get more news out of Europe looking at a crystal ball.

Mr. Powers: How would you like to cover the biggest story in the world today?
Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea): Give me an expense account and I'll cover anything.

Mr. Powers: You don't mind being Huntley Haverstock, do you?
Johnny Jones: A rose by any name, sir...
Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall): It's really very exciting being present at the christening of an American newspaper correspondent. Shouldn't we break a bottle of champagne or something over him?

Stebbins (Robert Benchley): Scotch and soda and a glass of milk.
Johnny Jones: A glass of milk?
Stebbins: Yes, I'm on the wagon. I went to the doctor today to see about these jitters I've got and he said it was the wagon for a month or a whole new set of organs. I can't afford a whole new set of organs.

Carol Fisher (Laraine Day): I think the world has been run long enough by the well-meaning professionals. We might give the amateurs a chance now.

Scott ffolliott (George Sanders): Who's he shot?
Johnny Jones: Van Meer. Assassinated.
ffolliott: Dead?
Johnny Jones: Looked like it.
ffolliott: Bad show.
Johnny Jones: Couldn't be much worse from his point of view.

Carol Fisher: Oh, I forgot, this is Scott ffolliott. Newspaperman - same as you. Foreign correspondent. Mr. Haverstock, Mr. ffolliott.
ffolliott: With a double-f...
Johnny Jones: How do you do?
ffolliott: How do you do.
Johnny Jones: I don't get the double-f.
ffolliott: At the beginning, old boy - and they're both small 'f's.
Johnny Jones: They can't be at the beginning.
ffolliott: One of my ancestors had his head chopped off by Henry VIII, and his wife dropped the capital letter to commemorate the occasion.

Carol Fisher: Mr. Haverstock, don't you think you've been talking through your hat long enough?
Johnny Jones: But I'm not talking through my hat. I've thrown a monkey wrench into some international dirty business, whatever it is - I know Van Meer's alive - that's the reason they want to kill me.
Carol Fisher: I can think of others.

Johnny Jones: You see, I love you, and I want to marry you.
Carol Fisher: I love you, and I want to marry you.
Johnny Jones: Well, that cuts down our love scene quite a bit, doesn't it?

Stephen Fisher: These people are criminals, more dangerous than your rumrunners and house breakers. They're fanatics. They combine a mad love of country with an equally mad indifference to life. Their own as well as others. They're cunning, unscrupulous, and... inspired.

Johnny Jones: (to Carol) If you knew how much I loved you, you'd faint.

Johnny Jones: I'm all mixed up. I'm in love with a girl, and I'm going to help hang her father.

Johnny Jones: I came 4,000 miles to get a story. I get shot at like a duck in a shooting gallery, I get pushed off buildings, I get the story, and then I've got to shut up!

Captain (Martin Lamont): Mr. Haverstock, I want a talk with you.
Johnny Jones: Yes sir?
Captain: I just found out you're a newspaperman.
Johnny Jones: I guess that's right.
Captain: Oh, it is, eh? Why didn't you tell me that when I questioned you? You lied to me, sir!
Johnny Jones: (surreptitiously filing his story to his editor over the telephone) My dear captain, when you've been shot down in a British plane by a German destroyer, 300 miles off the coast of England -latitude 45- and have been hanging on to a half-submerged wing for hours, waiting to drown, with half a dozen other stricken human beings, you're liable to forget you're a newspaperman for a moment or two!

Johnny Jones (Broadcasting from London): Hello, America. I've been watching a part of the world being blown to pieces. A part of the world as nice as Vermont, and Ohio, and Virginia, and California, and Illinois lies ripped up and bleeding like a steer in a slaughterhouse, and I've seen things that make the history of the savages read like Pollyanna legends. I've seen women... (bombs are heard)
Radio Announcer (John Burton): It's a raid; we shall have to postpone the broadcast.
Johnny Jones: Oh, postpone, nothing! Let's go on as long as we can.
Announcer: Madam, we have a shelter downstairs.
Johnny Jones: How about it, Carol?
Carol Fisher: They're listening in America, Johnny.
Johnny Jones: Okay, we'll tell 'em, then. I can't read the rest of the speech I had, because the lights have gone out, so I'll just have to talk off the cuff. All that noise you hear isn't static - it's death, coming to London. Yes, they're coming here now. You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes. Don't tune me out, hang on a while - this is a big story, and you're part of it. It's too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come... It's as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America. Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them. Hello, America, hang on to your lights: they're the only lights left in the world!

Compiled by John M. Miller