Foreign Correspondent (United Artists) (1940)

Here is the timely, newsworthy feature story of the "Foreign Correspondent"! Every editor will recognize the importance of this well-pre¬ pared and thorough Sunday story treatment on the title character of your high-powered presentation. Plant the full page now for big box- office returns! Order your 8-column mat from EXPLOITATION DEPT., UNITED ARTISTS CORP., 729 Seventh Ave., N. Y. City. Price: $1.20. (Above) The foreign correspondent is Sl. ids-on favorite to he an eye-witness when tl t rum¬ blings of history dictate a spectacular event. The seaplane crash in "Foreign Correspondent” is a breath-taking example. (Beloiv) When Stanley found and met Livingstone in Africa, a foreign correspondent became world-famous. mentaries on the Gallic War are a superlative example of war correspondence. To be sure, Caesar’s Commentaries were pub¬ lished years afterwards as mem¬ oirs, but that circumstance hardly detracts from their stature, in view of the fact that there were no daily newspapers in those days. The Crusades, which went on interminably from the 11th to the 15th Century, witnessed the rise of a veritable flock of correspond¬ ents. Numerous Crusaders kept diaries, or itineraria, and monks and other churchmen wrote reams on the expeditions. Raymond of KNIGHT-ERRANT OF OUR TIME ! The Foreign Correspondent, Whose Fame Began With Xenophon, Is The Most Romantic Figure of Today . . . The Globe is His Beat, and History is His Subject. AD VENTURER, fighter, soldier of fortune—the Foreign Cor¬ respondent is all of these things and more! The men who go overseas to bring the news to the people at home are, in this day of strife and trouble, the glamor boys of the Twentieth Century. His¬ torian, recorder of great and moving events, interpreter of in¬ trigues, reporter of wars and battles, confidant to the people— the foreign correspondent is a synthesis of all that is romantic and exciting in a workaday world. The foreign correspondent is a citizen of the world. He is a wanderer who makes his home wherever news is being made on the face of the earth. His every¬ day contacts are with crowned heads, with leaders of nations, with the men behind the scenes. The globe is his beat. Spies, ad¬ venturers, secret agents, inform¬ ers—colorful personalities out of a modern Arabian nights drama —these are the constant contacts of the foreign correspondent. Reckless, adventurous, colorful, spectacular — the foreign corres¬ pondent is the Knight Errant of our time! To the average citizen, the man at home who must gain his in¬ formation about affairs abroad from his daily newspaper, the foreign correspondent is a good deal more than a mere glamor boy. He is a friend, an advisor, a sole source of information about the dai’k and confusing movements of continental na¬ tions and dictators. He depends on the foreign correspondent for advice and counsel as he does upon his family doctor. And, as he trusts his doctor in time of sickness, in the same manner he has complete confidence in the reliability of his favorite foreign correspondent. A realization of all these quali¬ ties recently prompted Walter Wanger, the famous Hollywood producer, to make a picture about foreign correspondents. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the picture, “Foreign Correspondent,” is an adventure spectacle concerned with the riotous «~d dangerous career of a foreijl^newsman in war- and intrigue-torn Europe. The encounter of the foreign cor¬ respondent hero Col- porting. Two years later, in B.C., Xenephon “covered” the fa¬ mous trial of the generals and the overthrow of The Thirty. In 379, Socrates, much in the role of a modern city editor, advised Xenephon to consult the oracle at Delphi for his next move. But Xenephon, fractious reporter that he was, made up his own mind, and went to Sardis. That famous campaign he covered in his Ana¬ basis. In the course of a busy life of foreign reporting, Xene¬ phon went, at 'one time or another, to Persia, Thrace, Athens, Italy, Armenia, Georgia and Sparta. Thucydides, another great Gre¬ cian foreign correspondent, had a front seat in the wars which he covered. And more than a fair share of adventure and danger. His history of the Peloponesian War, one of the greatest docu¬ ments of its kind, was begun when Thucydides was an officer fighting in that campaign. Later, he fought as a general in Thrace, again writing an account of the action. In 418, no longer a soldier, s scene from "Foreign Corre- ndent”, directed by Alfred :hcock, is the spectacular be- ling of a story of intrigue and diplomacy. umn elements provides the ex¬ citing meat of the plot. Contrary to popular belief, the foreign correspondent is not strictly a product of the Twen¬ tieth Century. As a matter of fact, the profession traces back to antiquity—back to the early Greeks! Beginning at that time, roughly, and continuing to the present time, each age has had its foreign correspondents. As in modern times, the func¬ tion of the foreign correspondent covered a lot of ground. In the early days in Greece, the foreign correspondent was usually a writer, a soldier, a statesman and a politician, all rolled into one. One of the first, the historian Herodotus, lived from 484 to 425 B.C. During this period he travelled extensively, and re¬ ported back on customs and events in each part of the world he visited. Considering the fact that the world was so much larger in those days (in view of limited means of transportation), Herodotus really got around. A few of -the places he lived in or visited (he was born in Asia Minor) include Greece, Rhodes, Cyprus, Delos, Parus, Samothrace, Crete, Persia, Babylon, Palestine, Gaza, Egypt, - and the countries bordering the Black Sea. If Herodotus’s life was not par¬ ticularly adventurous, that of his contemporary Xenephon made up for it in good measure. When he was twenty years old, Xenephon took part in the Ionian campaign of the General Thrasyllus. Result: Xenephon’s Hellenica —a stirring and thrilling example of war re- First of a line of great mo¬ dern foreign corres¬ pondents was the World War’s Richard Harding Davis, whose exploits cap¬ tured the imagination of the world. Davis completely captured the admiration of the reading public of his time. Beginning by travel¬ ling for Harper’s Monthly, Davis graduated into newspaper work. His exploits and colorful writing soon made him an outstanding figure. Despite the fact that he created for himself an enviable career as a writer of short stories, Davis clung to his first love—foreign correspondence—up to the time of his death, in 1916. He had reported every war from the Greco-Turkish to the World War! It is cne foreign correspondent as he developed from the Davis- Stanley era on that Walter Wan¬ ger treats in “Foreign Corre¬ spondent,” the United Artists re¬ lease whose cast includes Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, George Sanders, Herbert Marshall, Ed¬ mund Gwenn and many others. Selecting the story not only be¬ cause of its timeliness but because of the genuine importance of the foreign correspondent today, Wanger made the inevitable choice of Alfred Hitchcock as director. Hitchcock, master of suspense and thrills, creator of “Rebecca,” “The Thirty-Nine Steps” and “The Lady Vanishes,” was the ideal choice to handle the thrill-packed, adventure-crammed tale orai^iodern foreign corre¬ spondent in the turmoil and strife and intrigue of war-ridden Europe. Briefly, the story concerns a city reporter who is sent abroad as, a foreign correspondent by an editor wR wants a fresh and unhackneyed slant on news events. The editor, needless to say, gets more than he bargained for. The new foreign correspon¬ dent’s entry into Europe starts a series of complications that lead him into dangers and adventures such as he never dreamed existed. He becomes entangled with a peace movement, with Fifth Col¬ umn agents, with connivers and international spies—and thus is embarked on a merry chase that leads him across the whole con¬ tinent and back. An amazing surprise ending winds up a fast and furious plot that only a Hitchcock might have handled with all justice! Although it is based on the life of no one man, “Foreign Corre- but strictly in the capacity of a newsman, he covered the Battle of Mantineia. Towards the end of his life, Thucydides missed one of the greatest scoops of all times. He happened to be several hun¬ dred miles away from the scene when, in 396 B.C., Mount Etna erupted! One of the greatest foreign correspondents of all time was a man who has plagued school boys from time immemorial — Gaius Julius Caesar.His immortal Corn- In the title role of "Foreign Correspondent”, Joel McCrea, accompanied by Laraine Day, becomes the center of a highly realistic treatment of the job of foreign correspondence. Agiles, Fulcher, and the anony¬ mous author of the Gesta Fran- corum were among the most pro¬ lific of these Holy War corre¬ spondents. The most meticulous city editor of a modern news¬ paper could find no fault with the complete coverage of the Cru¬ sades by foreign correspondents. The period of the Italian Renaissance, noted more particu¬ larly for the creation of art masterpieces, was not without its itinerant jornalists. Foremost of As throughout all history, the story of a dictatorship and power is the most dramatic of all. Neville Chamberlain smilingly reviewed Italian fascists in the recent past. Today their countries are at war. these was Marco Polo, who re- papers. Herald sent him to accompany a spondent” has in it many ele- corded in The Travels of Marco But it is in the late Nineteenth British expedition against the ments that are easily recognizable Polo his adventures in the Century that foreign correspon- Emperor Theodore of Abyssinia, as being the headlines of yester- strange land of Cathay. Here was dence really came into its own— His articles on this campaign day and today—and tomorrow! foreign correspondence which had when it first attached to itself were justly popular with the Having come a long way nothing to do with wars, but told those qualities of daring and ad- readers back home—his own ad- through the history of the ages, of the customs and habits of a venturousness that make it to- ventures being not least in ap- the foreign correspondent has far-off land. day’s number one glamor profes- pealing to the imagination of the today reached the zenith of his Foreign correspondence that sion. Two men were responsible people. Following the Abyssinian career. He is the man of the hour, had nothing to do with violence for this — Stanley, and Richard assignment, James Gordon Ben- Wireless, radio and the wide dis¬ and — more important — which Harding Davis. nett, of the Herald, gave Stanley tribution of newspapers in this found a regular outlet in a news- Stanley, one of 'the most pic- a roving commission, and Stanley country put his dispatches within paper, was that of our own Ben- turesque and exciting personali- travelled in Crete and Spain. It the reach of the whole nation, jamin Franklin. As Ambassador ties of the age, is known mostly, was in 1871 that he capped— The war in Europe makes him an to France, Ben Franklin had of course, for his expedition into though by no means finished—a invaluable aid to the man at ample opportunity to report on Africa to find Dr. Livingstone, remarkable career when he dis- home, who must know for the happenings abroad. He did so, But the rest of his life as a cor- covered Doctor David Living- sake of his own safety just what with regularity and at great respondent was equally colorful stone and unburdened himself of is going on in the rapidly chang- length, publishing his articles in and spectacular. In 1860, as a the now classic “Doctor Living- ing map of Europe, his own paper, Poor Richard’s correspondent for the Missouri stone, I presume?” But most of all, perhaps, the Almanac. Here was the first Democrat and other newspapers, Vieing for top honors with foreign correspondent is cher- touch of intimacy, of dependency he joined General Hancock’s ex- Stanley as favorite foreign corre- ished for his daring, for his between reader and writer that pedition against the Indians, com- spondent of the Nineteenth Cen- courage, for the sheer romantic so characterizes the relationship bining the duties of fighter and tury was Richard Harding Davis, glamor that to the correspondent of the modern correspondent with reporter. Like Stanley, debonair, daring, himself is no more than a part the readers of American news- In 1867-68 the New York handsome, Richard Harding of the daily job!