Foreign Correspondent (film) - Production

Production

Producer Walter Wanger bought the rights to journalist Vincent Sheean's memoir Personal History in 1935, but after several adaptations proved unsatisfactory, Wanger allowed the story to stray significantly from the book. It took numerous writers and five years before Wanger had a script he was satisfied with, by which time Hitchcock was in the U.S. under contract with David O. Selznick and available to direct this film on a loan-out. Hitchcock, who enjoyed not working under the usual close scrutiny of Selznick, originally wanted Gary Cooper and Joan Fontaine for the lead roles, but Cooper wasn't interested in doing a thriller at the time, and Selznick would not loan out Fontaine. Later, Cooper admitted to Hitchcock that he'd made a mistake in turning down the film.

Working titles for the film, which began production on 18 March 1940 and initially finished on 5 June, were "Personal History" and "Imposter". Shooting took place at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio in West Hollywood, and on location around Los Angeles and Long Beach.

After the film wrapped, Hitchcock visited his native England, and returned on 3 July to report that it was expected there that the Germans would begin bombing London at any time. To accommodate this, Ben Hecht was called in to write the epilogue of the film, the scene in the radio station, which replaced the original end-sequence in which two of the characters discussed the events of the film on a transatlantic seaplane trip. The new ending was filmed on 5 July, presciently foreshadowing the celebrated radio broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow.

One of the sequences in the film that continues to have a strong impact on viewers is the mid-ocean crash of the Empire airplane after it is shot down by a German destroyer. In 1972, in an interview with Dick Cavett, Hitchcock discussed some details of how the scene was created. Footage taken from a stunt plane diving over the ocean was rear projected on rice paper in front of the cockpit set, while behind the rice paper were two chutes connected to large water tanks. The chutes were aimed at the windshield of the cockpit, so that water would break through the rice paper at the right moment, simulating the crash of the plane into the ocean.

Hitchcock's eccentric marriage proposal to his wife Alma was written for this film, for the scene when Haverstock proposes to Carol.

Hitchcock frequently used visual imagery to underscore the dramatic action. When McCrea flees his hotel room and touches the letter 'E' of the neon 'HOTEL' sign, he burns himself and the letters 'E' and 'L' die, appropriately leaving the word 'HOT' and leaving the hotel's name as 'HOT EUROPE', underscoring the film's theme of war in Europe. Also, there is an unmistakable image of Adolf Hitler in the windmill scene. Right after McCrea rescues his coat from the grinding gears, and escapes out the window, he peers back in at the spies. In the right hand corner of the scene, there is a cartoon like image of Adolf Hitler formed by a wood beam and unidentified markings: Hitchcock's subtle, almost subliminal reminder of who the bad guys really represent.