Foreign Correspondent (United Artists) (1940)

Thrills at Peak WhenSeaplane Spins, Crashes For the first time in the history of motion picture making, the re¬ actions of passengers aboard a great trans-Atlantic Seaplane dis¬ abled in the air and spinning into the sea was filmed for a spec¬ tacular sequence of the new Walter Wanger thrill drama, “Foreign Correspondent,” which will have its premiere at the .... Theatre on ... . A master of realism and sus¬ pense, Director Alfred Hitchcock discussed the matter at length with Producer Wanger before the picture started. “Of course I know it will be tre¬ mendously expensive,” he said. “It probably will cost ten times as much as using miniatures, the cus¬ tomary method. However, it has the advantage of novelty—no one has ever attempted it before, and it will add tremendously to the drama of the scene. The audience will know exactly how it feels to go through such an experience when they see it on the screen. It will add a fitting climax to a series of progressive situations which are more and more suspenseful.” On Hitchcock’s guarantee that it probably would be the most excit¬ ing scene ever made, Wanger im¬ mediately okayed the extra ex¬ pense in line with his production policy of always striving for the best possible effects in telling a story. “Making the audience suffer” is a trick of Hitchcock’s which he has found highly successful. “I make them a part of the story,” he explains, “and they go right along with the characters. Sometimes they -know more than my people when it is necessary to heighten the suspense, again they are taken completely by surprise. Any picture at which audiences have exclaimed aloud in alarm or gasped with fright, always has been a great success.” Director Diets Alfred Hitchcock, whose recent film, “Rebecca,” is making screen history, goes on a strict diet while directing a picture. While directing Walter Wanger’s “Foreign Corre¬ spondent,” the thrilling spectacle drama now on view at the .... Theatre, Hitchcock lost 20 pounds. Usually a heavy eater, Hitchcock had but two cups of coffee for breakfast, one bowl of consomme for luncheon and one cup of tea, at four each day, during production. Dinner, at seven each night, was quite another story, but during working hours, the celebrated di¬ rector ate no solid food whatever. “Foreign Correspondent,” which is a United Artists release, stars Joel McCrea and Laraine Day, with Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman and Robert Benchley featured. SCREEN KILLER FAVORS COMEDY A Pagliacci in reverse, might well describe Eduardo Ciannelli who is such a heavy “heavy” that buildings quiver like they were being shaken by earthquakes when he strides through a scene. The man who has chilled audi¬ ences in all parts of the world with his sinister portrayals, longs to make them laugh instead of shiver. Currently, however, he’s still making them shiver in Walter Wanger’s “Foreign Correspond¬ ent,” now at the .... Theatre. “And it’s not so impossible,” he insists. “Be¬ fore I came into pictures, with one exception, I never played gangsters or toughies. My specialty was high comedy.” The one ex¬ ception Cian¬ nelli mentions was the excep- tion that changed the rule of his career. He played the gangster Trock in “Winterset” on Broadway, and made his movie debut in the same role. To escape “typing” on Broad¬ way, he had only taken the gang¬ ster part on condition that he would follow immediately as the Bishop of Beauvais in “Saint Joan” opposite Katherine Cornell, but he didn’t count upon screen producers and audiences. “Now,” he mourns, “apparently they’ll accept me as nothing else than a heavy, although my great¬ est desire is to do comedy on the screen.” Ciannellli has had a varied ca¬ reer. He was born in Naples on an August 30, of an Italian father and English mother, the youngest of four boys in the family. He also has one sister. Eduardo Ciannelli in “Foreign Correspondent” 16 A—Thumbnail (Mat ,15;Cut .25) Hitchcock Demands and Gets Cities, Hotels and Windmills Said Alfred Hitchcock, the director: “Build me a piece of Amsterdam, a good slice of London, an airplane as big as an Atlantic clipper, a few hotels, a Dutch windmill and a bit of Dutch countryside. And while you’re about it, throw in the Soho district.” That wasn’t all he wanted for the Walter Wanger produc¬ tion, “Foreign Correspondent,” now at the .... Theatre, but it gives you a rough idea. Before he got through, Alex Golitzen, the art director, had spent some $200,000, had made 800 sketches and - had built sev- ^ enty odd set- tings, the biggest job he ever tackled since he started designing film sets in 1929. Golitzen’s first step in the huge set-building job for the film which features Joel McCrea, Laraine Day and Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basser¬ man and Rob- (Mat .15; Cut .25) ert Benchley,- was to study the personality of the director, Hitchcock. Golitzen al¬ ways does that. He finds out a di¬ rector’s technique, then builds the sets to fit it. Before he made a single “Foreign Correspondent” sketch he went into the projection room and looked at every picture Hitchcock has made during the last five years. Golitzen believes that an art di¬ rector’s job demands more than creating settings. He feels that every camera set-up should be mapped out and sketches made. He believes sets should capture the mood of the film. So he sat down and made several hundred draw¬ ings of backgrounds, angles and Alfred Hitchcock, director of “Foreign Correspondent” Basser- 15 A — Thumbnail perspectives and then surveyed the entire display with the director who visualized his production for the art director before building the settings began. The biggest set was an Amster¬ dam public square accurate in every detail. It covered ten acres and took four weeks to build, with three crews of men working 24 hours a day. The set required an elaborate sewer system to carry off the rain water, for the scenes filmed in Amsterdam embraced a rain sequence. There were street cars that actually moved, a vast public building with a long and broad flight of steps, shops, homes, offices—four blocks of the Dutch city in all. But the set Golitzen liked best was that of a Dutch windmill in which much of the suspenseful ac¬ tion takes place. On the back lot he created a colorful bit of Hol¬ land lowlands — fields and farms and swamps, and right in the foreground was the huge windmill, towering 80 feet in the air. On one of the stages, Golitzen built the interior of the mill with parts made out of apple-wood that actu¬ ally ground meal. That setting, Golitzen feels, had mood—he likes mood in sets. The huge airplane was Golitzen’s first, and he hopes, his last. He says he is not an aircraft manu¬ facturer. The plane cost some $50,- 000 and was built to scale—four motors, 120-foot wingspread and an 84-foot fuselage. The famous hotel Savoy in Lon¬ don was copied for the picture — inside and out. So was the Hotel Europa in Amsterdam. Those were simple, Golitzen says. Anyone can build hotels, with sufficient techni¬ cal help. ACTORS HUMOR PAYS DIVIDENDS Robert Benchley in “Foreign Correspondent” 17 A—Thumbnail (Mat .15; Cut .25)