Stubs - Pinocchio (1940)

Pinocchio (1940) Voices of Dickie Jones, Cliff Edwards, Christian Rub, Walter Catlett. Directed by Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, David Hand (Supervising Directors). Screenplay by Ted Sears, Webb Smith, Joseph Sabo, Otto Englander, William Cottrell, Erdman Penner, Aurie Battaglia (Story Adapted by). Based on the novel L'avventure di Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (Rome, 1882). Produced by Walt Disney (Presented by). USA Run time: 87 min. Animated, Fantasy

Work on Disney's second animated feature began while Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was being completed in 1937. But as soon as 1938, there was talk that Bambi would be the second animated film released as there were story difficulties with Pinocchio. Disney discarded 2300 feet of the film, or what is believed to have been 5 months of work. This was apparently footage supervised by David Hand, who would not receive onscreen credit when the film was released.

Pinocchio’s look was probably part of the problem, as according to Bob Jones, the supervisor of the department at Disney to design and manufacture character models, “at least 12 Disney artists struggled over an 18-month period--each contributing their own ideas--before the design [for Pinocchio] was finalized."

Jiminy Cricket was a bit of an afterthought. There is a cricket in Collodi’s original story, but rather than being the puppet boy's conscience, the puppet kills the cricket. Naming him Jiminy, Disney asked his artists to create a cricket who looked "like a human being" and "talked and wore clothes."

All-in-all, a contemporary study guide for the picture stated that 2,000,000 drawings were created, of which 300,000 were used in the final film. The budget was $2.5 million, much of which went into the scenes filmed by the multiplane camera, single sequences of which cost up to $48,000.

The film had its premiere in New York on February 7, 1940, and was in general release on February 23, 1940. While the film is now considered a classic, when it was first released, the film was considered a box-office bomb. Such were the times, when World War II cut off Europe and Asian markets. The film didn’t turn a profit until its 1945 re-release.

Stubs - Our Town

Our Town (1940) Starring Frank Craven, William Holden, Martha Scott, Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee. Director: Sam Wood. Screenplay by Thornton Wilder, Frank Craven, Harry Chandlee. Based on the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder (New York, 4 Feb 1938). Produced by Sol Lesser. Run time: 90 minutes. Black and White. USA. Drama.

Even before Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town went into production on Broadway, there were plans for a motion picture based on it. Producers Jed Harris and William K. Howard purchased Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play in 1937 with the intention of producing it on Broadway and making it into a motion picture. In 1939, producer Sol Lesser bought the motion picture rights for $75,000. Originally planned to be shot in Technicolor and directed by Ernest Lubitsch, the film adaptation had a major issue. The play was produced on a nearly bare stage and its main character died at the end.

But this is Hollywood and films are supposed to have happy endings. Lesser worked closely with
Wilder before changing the play. Wilder consented, writing to Lesser, "Emily should live...In a movie you see the people so close 'to' that a different relation is established. In the theatre, they are halfway abstraction in an allegory, in the movie they are very concrete. So, insofar as the play is a generalized allegory, she dies-we die-they die; insofar as it's a concrete happening it's not important that she die; it is disproportionately cruel that she die. Let her live--the idea will have been imparted anyway."

Stubs - You Nazty Spy!

You Nazty Spy! (1940) Starring: Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Lorna Gray, Dick Curtis, Don Beddoe. Directed by Jules White. Screenplay by Felix Adler and Clyde Bruckman. Produced by Jules White. Run Time: 18 minutes. U.S.A. Black and White. Comedy, Satire, Slapstick

If you’re of a certain age, the Three Stooges was something you watched after school on television. For me, they were the feature on a show called Slam Bang Theatre, hosted by Icky Twerp (Bill Camfield) with his two sidekicks in ape masks, Ajax and Delphinium. They were not something that my parents really wanted me to watch, thinking these old slapstick shorts would be a bad influence on me and my brother. They never out and out stopped us from watching, just looked disappointed when we talked about it.

Long before the Three Stooges became mid-60s syndication figures, they had appeared on vaudeville starting as support players for Ted Healy. Larry Fine, a vaudeville violinist, met Shemp Howard and Ted Healy when they were performing in the Shubert Brothers' A Night in Spain. Since Shemp was leaving the play, Fine was asked if he wanted to replace him, a replacement stooge. At the time, Healy’s other two stooges were Bobby Pinkus and Sam 'Moody' Braun.

Later, in 1929, Healy signed a contract to perform in a new Shubert Brothers revue, A Night in Venice and brought with him Fine, Shemp and Moe Howard. Moe had previously worked with Healy as well, back in 1921 in vaudeville. A Night in Venice ran until March 1930. That spring and summer, they toured as "Ted Healy & His Racketeers" before heading to Hollywood for Fox Studio’s Soup to Nuts (1930).

The Stooges broke away from Healy after that, as "Howard, Fine and Howard: Three Lost Soles" until the Summer of 1932. In July, Fine, Moe and Moe’s brother Curly joined back up with Healy; Shemp had broken off to pursue a solo career.

MGM signed Healy and his Stooges to a contract in 1933 and they appeared in several feature films and short subjects. Their final film together was Hollywood Party (1934). After that, the stooges parted company. The Stooges would sign a contract with Columbia Pictures to make two-reel comedies. They would go on to make 190 shorts at Columbia between 1934 and 1958, though there would be changes in the group, with Curly replacing Shemp in 1932, Shemp coming back to replace Curly in 1946 and Joe Besser replacing Shemp in 1956. Curly Joe DeRita would replace Besser in 1958 until 1970.

Their humor was considered low-brow slapstick. Moe was basically the ringleader and used physical abuse to keep the others in line and to do his bidding. I can understand why my parents were wary of me watching them and over time I feel like I’ve outgrown their humor, though it’s been a long time since I’ve watched any of their shorts.

What is of interest here is You Nazty Spy! the groups’ 44^th short. The subject matter is something that Hollywood had tried to ignore up until now, Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. While Charlie Chaplin would get a lot of credit for parodying Hitler in his film The Great Dictator (1940), the Stooges beat him to the punch by about 9 months.

At the time of the film’s release, the U.S. was trying to avoid taking sides in what was becoming a European War. So worried was the U.S. government about taking sides, in 1941, isolationist senators were investigating suspected anti-Nazi propaganda by Hollywood. The committee had gone as far as making a list of films with an anti-Nazi bent. (These hearings are little known because they were canceled on the morning of Monday, Dec. 8, 1941, and the findings were never reported.)

The Hays office and the production code discouraged or prohibited many types of political and satirical messages in films, requiring that the history and prominent people of other countries must be portrayed "fairly". Short films, though, like those starring the Stooges, were given less attention than features and apparently didn’t stop them from making the film.

Filmed between December 5 and 9, 1939, the film was released on January 19, 1940. Written by Felix Adler and Clyde Bruckman, the latter of whom had worked with Buster Keaton and W.C. Fields. The director was Jules White, head of Columbia Pictures' short-subject division. In the 1930’s, while other suppliers of comedy shorts Hal Roach, Educational Pictures and Universal Pictures were scaling back, Columbia was just ramping up. White was used to physical humor, which fit in well with The Three Stooges act. Rather than the physical humor of say, the Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges were much rougher. Rather than cutting a deck of cars with an ax, as Harpo does in Horse Feathers (1932), Moe is more likely to hit Larry over the head with one.

You Nazty Spy! featured a new title sequence including the Columbia logo's torch-bearing woman on the left-hand corner, standing on a pedestal where each step has printed out "Columbia," "Short Subject" and "Presentation." 

The short begins with a title card disclaimer that reads: "Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle."

The story takes place in the fictional country of Moronika, where three munition manufacturers, Ixnay (Richard Fiske), Onay (Dick Curtis), and Amscray (Don Beddoe), are sitting around complaining about the lack of money they’re making. They blame their king, Herman the Sixth and Seven-Eights, and his policy of peace over war. Their solution is to instigate an overthrow of the King and install a dictatorship in his place. But who in the kingdom would be stupid enough to be a figurehead they could control?

Ixnay (Richard Fiske), Onay (Dick Curtis), and Amscray (Don Beddoe) meet with Moe Hailstone (Moe Howard), Curly Gallstone (Curly Howard) and Larry Pebble (Larry Fine) to discuss setting up a dictatorship.

Ixnay suggests they use one of the paper hangers working in his living room. They go in and we meet Moe Hailstone (Moe Howard), Curly Gallstone (Curly Howard), and Larry Pebble (Larry Fine). It is decided that Moe shall be the dictator, Curly his Field Marshal and Larry as Minister of Propaganda, send-ups of Adolph Hitler, Hermann Göring, and Joseph Goebbels respectively.

Moe, Curly and Larry accept the offer and give their own version of the Nazi salute.

They are told instigate a Beer Hall Putsch; to buy beer for a crowd and then lead them against the King. This apparently happens off camera, as next, we see the flag of Moronika features two snakes in the shape of a swastika and the phrase "Moronika for Morons".

Moe gives a parody of a Hitler speech flanked by his Field Marshal and Minister of Propaganda.

Next, we see the Stooges, Moe is making a speech on a balcony flanked by Curly and Larry. As Moe speaks about helping Moronika helping its neighbors and then helping themselves to their neighbors, Larry holds up signs directing the masses on how to respond. The signs read "CHEERS", "APPLAUSE", and, accidentally, "HISS".

The king's daughter (Lorna Gray) disguised as Moe's secretary.

Afterwards, Moe’s secretary, or stenographer as Curly calls her, is the king’s daughter (Lorna Gray). She announces to Moe that Mattie Herring (a spoof of World War I spy Mata Hari) is there to see him and then changes out of her secretary disguise. As Mattie, she comes to read Moe his future. Rather than a crystal ball, she uses an 8 ball, which she instructs Moe to sit behind. When the 8-ball gets busted in two, a note inside gives her away as the daughter of the King.

As Mattie Herring, she plays fortune teller with an 8-ball.

Suspecting her of being a spy, she is sentenced to death and Curly is supposed to execute her. But when he offers her a blindfold, she says “yes” and then puts it over Curly’s eyes. Curly, even though he can’t see anything, still tries to go through with the execution, but she takes the opportunity to make her escape.

Moe wants to have a round-meeting with neighboring countries, and when Larry points out that it is a square table, Moe gives him a saw to round it off with.

The map showing Moronika and the surrounding countries.

Then for some reason, a ballerina enters, dancing of course, and informs Moe that the delegates for the meeting have arrived. Moe tells those assembled that Moronika demands concessions from its neighbors, leading the delegates to start arguing with him. Curly quells them by knocking them out with golf balls.

But their triumph is short-lived. After the meeting, a large mob, led by the King and Mattie Herring, advance on the palace. The trio immediately abdicates and try to find a place to hide. They inadvertently run into a lion’s den and are eaten. The film ends with the lions wearing articles of the trio’s clothing. And if it’s not clear what took place, one of the lions burps.

The short was surprisingly successful, even playing at major theaters that had previously not shown their work. A sequel followed, I'll Never Heil Again, in 1941, the first in the Stooges film canon. By then, everyone was getting onboard the anti-Nazi bandwagon.

The short is in many ways typical fare from the Stooges; eyes are poked, heads are slapped and mayhem. It shows a limit to the Stooges repertoire, and parts of the act that would be used in pretty much every short they made. Theirs is a different type of physical humor that one sees in Charlie Chaplin and Marx Brothers movies.

There are some cultural references that many today may not get. An example is that while the Stooges are waiting for their fortune, they tell each other to shush, which turns into mimicking the sound of a train going down the track until stops. A conductor comes out of nowhere and announces All out for Syracuse!" Hearing that, Larry gets up and announces that it's his stop. Moe explains to a confused Mattie, that "The boy's from Syracuse" - a reference to the musical The Boys from Syracuse which premiered on Broadway in 1938.

The Stooges were all Ashkenazi Jews and would work in Yiddish into their dialogue. In Moe's imitation of a Hitler speech, he says "in pupik gehabt haben" (the semi-obscene "I've had it in the bellybutton" in Yiddish). The irony of hearing Hitler speaking Yiddish was not lost on the Yiddish-speaking Jews in the audience.

But the main aim of the film is to parody Hitler and Nazi Germany. The phrase on the flag "Moronika for Morons" is a direct play on the Nazi slogan "Deutschland den Deutschen" (Germany for Germans). Hitler’s failed attempt to take power in 1923, leading a Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, is also parodied. The reference to Hitler as a paper hanger refers to a 1937 speech by Cardinal George Mundelein of Chicago, who called Hitler an "Austrian paperhanger", perhaps because he was a failed artist. The nickname stuck, even though there is no evidence that Hitler actually ever made a living doing that.

Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 was as a figurehead of sorts. The Post World I German Weimar government was run by a coalition of fascists, communists, and socialists. All of the parties were pulling for power and when they had to elect a new Chancellor of Germany, none had enough votes to win the position. They decided to elect Hitler, as a puppet figurehead, because he seemed harmless enough.

In 1933, Hitler was elected by a democratic process to the position of Chancellor of Germany. Less than one month later, a fire broke out in the Reichstag building, similar to our Congress, known as the Reichstag Fire. Hitler seized on the moment and claimed the fire was really a coup attempt by the communists. The S.S. destroyed documents and framed the communists, the leaders of which were arrested and sent to Dachau -- the beginning of the concentration camps. As Chancellor of Germany, Hitler declared a state of emergency, taking away all personal rights and freedoms. The accidental fire allowed Hitler the opportunity to become Dictator.

The Three Stooges might not be to everyone’s taste, but you have to applaud them for being the first in mainstream Hollywood to satirize the Nazis and the Third Reich. There is a certain amount of bravery involved by not only the Stooges, but also the director and writers, not to mention Columbia Pictures, for going against the isolationist grain that was predominant at the time in the U.S. So, while you might not laugh out loud at the short, you have to appreciate the Stooges for taking a stand when no one else was willing to.

Stubs – Foreign Correspondent

Foreign Correspondent (1940) Starring: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Bassermann, Robert Benchley. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison, James Hilton, Robert Benchley. Based on the book Personal History by Vincent Sheean (1935). Produced by Walter Wanger.  Run Time: 120 minutes. U.S.  Black and White. Thriller, Drama, Espionage

I find 1940 to be an interesting year in Hollywood. One year removed from Hollywood’s Golden Year, 1939, it is also one year prior to America’s entry into World War II. Hollywood was still exporting films to Germany, even though they had started the War by invading Poland on September 1, 1939. Films varied on their treatment of Europe with few calling out the Nazi regime. There were exceptions, Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), Espionage Agent (1939), The Three Stooges’ short You Nazty Spy! (1940), and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940), being among those that clearly drew sides prior to the U.S. declaring war on Germany.

As Europe was edging closer to war in the late 30s, Alfred Hitchcock came to the U.S. under contract to David O. Selznick. Drawn to Hollywood by superior resources of the studios here, as compared to back in England, Hitchcock was pursued by both Selznick and Samuel Goldwyn. Even though there was tension between director and producer, Hitchcock’s first film for Selznick, Rebecca (1940), was a major success, both commercially and critically. The film would win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, beating out a competitive field which included Foreign Correspondent.

Because independent producers like Goldwyn and Selznick made only a few pictures a year, they often lent out the talent they had under contract to other producers and to the larger studios. After making Rebecca, Selznick would loan out his new director to Walter Wanger.

Wanger was a producer who got his start with Paramount Pictures in the 1920s. His first big success was The Sheik (1921), starring Rudolph Valentino. He would also have a hand in the Marx Brothers first film for that studio, The Cocoanuts (1929). After leaving Paramount, he tried his hand at being an independent producer. For the rest of his career, Wanger would go between being a contracted producer or an independent one. In 1939, he had produced Stagecoach and Eternally Yours, both released through United Artists.

Wanger had purchased the rights to the memoir Personal History, written in 1935 by Vincent Sheean, a reporter who had worked for the New York Herald Tribune. Several attempts were made over the next five years to adapt the story for the screen, but none of them seemed to work until Wanger allowed their stories to diverge from the source material. There were a number of writers who worked on the screenplay, but who did not get screen credit, including Ben Hecht.

Finally with a screenplay to produce and Hitchcock available to direct, the next step in the process was casting. Hitchcock had wanted Gary Cooper and Joan Fontaine, the latter who was also under contract to Selznick. Cooper turned down the role because it was a thriller, a move he would later regret. And Selznick wouldn’t loan Fontaine out.

The title role went to Joel McCrea, an actor who was just starting to come into his own. He had begun working as a stunt double while still attending Hollywood High School. He appeared as an extra in The Enemy (1927) and The Fair Co-Ed (1927) before signing with MGM. There he appeared in his first leading role in The Jazz Age (1929). In the 1930s he moved to RKO where he starred opposite Dolores del Rio in King Vidor’s Bird of Paradise (1932).

Late in the decade, he appeared in Westerns, including Wells Fargo (1937) and Union Pacific (1939). That same year, he would also appear in one of the first pre-World War II espionage films to identify the German Nazis as the enemy, the above-mentioned Espionage Agent.

The other lead went to Laraine Day, an actress who had made her film debut only a few years before in Stella Dallas (1937) and who up until then was best known for her role as nurse Mary Lamont in the Dr. Kildare series of films starring Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore.

Filming began on March 18, 1940, at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio in West Hollywood, known as “The Lot”. Using some locations in Los Angeles and Long Beach, production ended on June 5^th.  Following the end of production, Hitchcock returned to England. When he returned on July 3^rd, he brought with him a report that the Germans were expected to start bombing London anytime. Screenwriter Ben Hecht was hired to write the epilogue to the movie and filming took place on July 5^th.

The film opens in the editorial offices of the New York Globe. Mr. Powers (Harry Davenport) believes there is a crisis brewing in Europe, but he’s not getting the story from his foreign correspondents. Deciding he needs a crime reporter instead, he calls up Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) from the city room. Jones is a reporter who has shown a willingness to get into trouble to get a story. Giving him the pen name Huntley Haverstock, which he thinks is more akin to foreign correspondent than Jones, Powers sends him to Europe.

Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) is rechristened Huntley Haverstock when the editor
of the New York Globe (Harry Davenport) promotes his crime reporter to foreign correspondent.

He meets his first assignment, Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall), the leader of the Universal Peace Party, in Powers’ office before leaving aboard an ocean liner for England. There he meets the Globe’s London-based foreign correspondent, Stebbins (Robert Benchley), who has made a habit of doing exactly what Powers claims to hate, submitting government releases as news reports.

Robert Benchley plays Stebbins, the Globe's London-based foreign correspondent.

While Stebbins is meeting a woman at the hotel, Johnny is headed for an event to honor Dutch diplomat Van Meer (Albert Bassermann), whom he sees getting into a taxi. Van Meer invites him to ride along, but while Johnny tries to interview Van Meer, he is only interested in making idle chit-chat about the birds in the park.

Johnny meets Van Meer (Albert Bassermann) and they share a taxi.

At the party, Johnny meets Fisher’s daughter, Carol (Laraine Day), who works closely with her father. Johnny, however, assumes she’s there to handle the press and makes his attempt at a pass. Throughout the luncheon, Johnny passes notes to Carol, asking her questions like how big of a family she wants. When Van Meer disappears unexpectedly, Carol is called upon to speak in his place and Johnny is duly impressed again by her.

Johnny leaves London to follow Van Meer to a political conference in Amsterdam. Johnny waits anxiously outside for Van Meer to arrive, but when he does, Van Meer has no recollection of who Johnny is, despite having shared a taxi only days earlier.

Van Meer is apparently shot by a man pretending to be a photographer as Johnny watches.

It is on the steps that a man posing as a photographer assassinates Van Meer in front of a crowd of people who have gathered on the steps of the hall. Johnny takes chase, but the assassin eludes him and makes his way to a waiting getaway car. In order to take chase, Johnny tries to commandeer a car, which just happens to have Carol in it, and is driven by Scott ffolliott (George Sanders), a reporter for a rival paper. Scott explains the odd spelling of his surname is that the capital letter was dropped in memory of an executed ancestor.

Johnny jumps into a car driven by another reporter Scott ffolliot (George Sanders)
and the woman they are both in love with, Carol Fisher (Laraine Day). Together
they chase Van Meer's assassin through the Dutch countryside.

Despite the fact the getaway car fires at them, the three take chase until the getaway car suddenly disappears when they come to a row of windmills. The police, who are also chasing the assassin, drive past, but Johnny is convinced the getaway car is in the first windmill they see. Johnny notices that the windmill is turning in the opposite direction of the wind and figures it is signaling a plane that is circling overhead.

Johnny sends Carol and ffolliott for help but stays behind to snoop around. He finds the getaway car in the garage and, after sneaking into the house, finds the real Van Meer drugged in one of the upper rooms. The Van Meer look-alike Johnny had seen was killed to hide the fact the real Van Meer had been kidnapped. The real Van Meer is about to be taken away in the plane.

Johnny discovers the real Van Meer is really alive and being held hostage in a windmill.

Things get tense when Van Meer’s kidnappers come up to his room on the only stairwell and Johnny has no place to go but out the window. Johnny goes into the nearest town to get help, but it takes too long to get the local authorities to believe him. By the time they get back to the windmill, Van Meer is gone, as is the getaway car. The only man they find on the premises pretends to be a homeless man and tells the police he’d been sleeping there all day.

Back at his hotel room, Johnny is typing up his submission for the paper before he gets ready to take a shower. Wearing his underwear, socks and a dressing gown, he opens the door. Two men dressed like policemen enter and tell him they want to take him to headquarters. Fearing they’re there to kill him, Johnny goes out through the bathroom window and, hugging onto the building, manages to make it across the ledge to an open window. On the way, Johnny touches the E in the neon Hotel Europe sign, reducing the name to Hot Europe. The open window belongs to Carol’s room and she is in the middle of entertaining some world leaders. She is not happy to see Johnny, especially in his dressing gown and almost kicks him out. She decides to help him. Johnny calls everyone from hotel security to room service to his room in an effort to confound his kidnappers. In the midst of the confusion, the hotel’s valet manages to slip in and grab clothes for Johnny, and later, he and Carol manage to escape.

Dressed only in his dressing gown, Johnny escapes through his hotel's bathroom window.

Johnny and Carol board a British boat back to England. When they fail to get a cabin, they spend the night out on the deck, even though there is a furious storm in progress. Johnny confesses his love for Carol and asks her to marry him.

When they arrive in London, they go straight to her father’s house. Mr. Fisher is having breakfast with Mr. Krug (Eduardo Ciannelli), one of Van Meer’s kidnappers he’d seen in the windmill. He informs Fisher about this and he tells him to leave it to him to handle as he goes off to a private meeting with Mr. Krug.

Mr. Krug and Fisher, who are in cahoots with each other, decide to hire Rowley (Edmund Gwenn), a “bodyguard” whom they’ve used in the past to get rid of their enemies. Johnny has no idea what Rowley is up to. Rowley convinces Johnny that they’re being followed and they stop at the Westminster Cathedral to try and lose their tail. Rowley then talks Johnny into visiting the cathedral’s tower. After waiting for the crowd to thin out, Rowley attempts to push Johnny over, but Johnny moves out of the way just in time and it is Rowley who plunges to his death.

Rowley (Edmund Gwenn) is hired to kill Johnny, but ends up falling to his death when he misses.

Johnny and ffolliott are both convinced that Fisher is a traitor and they hatch a plot to get Carol out of the city. Carol thinks she’s kidnapping Johnny and drives him out to Cambridge and gets him a room at a B and B. But ffolliott wants Johnny to keep her out of the city until morning, so Johnny tries to book her a room. But when she overhears him making arrangements and thinking he has prurient interests, she flees back to London. 

Johnny and ffolliott plot to kidnap Carol to Cambridge, where
things get to heavy for Carol and she flees back to London.

Meanwhile, ffolliott tries to coerce Fisher into divulging where Van Meer is being kept in exchange for Carol, whom he convinces Fisher he’s helped to kidnap. Just when Fisher is about to capitulate, he hears Carol’s car pull up outside.

ffolliott tries to blackmail Fisher into divulging Van Meer's location.

With Stebbins with him, ffolliott follows Fisher to the hotel where Van Meer is being held. He sends Stebbins back to wait for Johnny and goes into the hotel. The receptionists, fearing reprisals to their families back in Germany, take ffolliott hostage and take him to the room where Van Meer is being interrogated. When Fisher fails to convince his old friend that he needs to tell him the secret paragraph, Van Meer is roughed up until he breaks. Just as Van Meer is being forced to divulge the information the organization wants, an unwritten paragraph in a treaty recently signed, ffolliott distracts the interrogators. He manages to jump out the window, his fall broken by the hotel’s awning. He lands on the street just as Johnny arrives. They go back into the hotel, but Fisher and Krug have escaped. Van Meer, who has been left behind, is rushed to the hospital in a coma.

The hotel where Van Meer is being held.

Johnny and ffolliott are aware of Fisher’s plans to fly to America with Carol the next morning and manage to get passage on the plane. War has been declared between England, France and Germany, following Germany’s invasion of Poland.

Onboard the plane, Fisher manages to intercept a message for ffolliott and learns that authorities will be waiting for the plane when it lands. Knowing he’ll be tried for treason. Fisher confesses his involvement to Carol. Thinking Johnny has been using her to get to her father, Carol won’t listen when Johnny tries to explain he was just doing his job as a reporter.

The pilots try to react as the plane is being shelled. Germany and the UK were already at war.

Seconds later, the plane is shelled out of the sky by a German destroyer and crashes into the ocean. Only a handful of passengers survive, including Fisher, Carol, Johnny, and ffolliott. They manage to scramble onto one of the plane’s wings. Realizing that it cannot support all the weight and everyone, including his daughter, is in danger, Fisher slips off the wing and is drowned.

After being shot down, Carol and Johnny take refuge on a wing of the plane.

The survivors are rescued by an American ship, the Mohican, heading to London. Because of American neutrality, the ship’s Captain (Emory Parnell) doesn’t want them calling in any news about the shoot down. But Johnny, who has Mr. Powers at the Globe on the ship to shore, instead pretends to tell the Captain the story he would be reporting, so the whole story is told.

The film ends back in London. Johnny and Carol are together while Johnny makes a radio broadcast back to the states. London is being bombed by the Germans as Johnny warns America to be vigilante saying as he signs off “Hello, America, hang on to your lights: they're the only lights left in the world!” Pretty heady stuff for a film made in a country that was not yet part of the war.

Life imitates art. Johnny makes a radio report to America about the German
bombing of London. The film was released before Edward R.
Murrow would be reporting on the same event in real life.

While Gary Cooper might have been the first choice to play Johnny Jones/Huntley Haverstock, Joel McCrea is excellent in the role and in retrospect was probably a better acting choice. He exudes American determination and naivety at the same time, which is right for the time. Like Cooper, McCrea shows that he can be both understated and still manage to be heroic.

Following this film, McCrea would try his hand at comedy, working with Preston Sturges on two projects, Sullivan’s Travels (1941) and The Palm Beach Story (1942). After that, he would mostly be known for Westerns: The Virginian (1946), Colorado Territory (1949), Frenchie (1950), Stranger on Horseback (1955), and his final film, Mustang Country (1976).

Laraine Day is good as the love interest. Pretty without being exotic, the type of woman an American like Johnny Jones would fall for. She would return to the Dr. Kildare film series: Dr. Kildare Goes Home (1940), Dr. Kildare’s Crisis (1940), The People v. Dr. Kildare (1941), Dr. Kildare’s Wedding Day (1941), and Dr. Kildare’s Victory (1942). She would also star opposite Cary Grant in Mr. Lucky (1943), Robert Mitchum in The Locket (1946) and Kirk Douglas in My Dear Secretary (1948). She would marry Leo Durocher, the manager of the then New York Giants baseball team, in 1948 and was known for a while as “The First Lady of Baseball,” even hosting a 15-minute TV interview program, Day with the Giants, before each New York Giants home game.

George Sanders, who plays rival reporter ffolliott, had worked with Hitchcock on Rebecca. Sanders always seems to play the same sort of character, at least in the films I’ve seen him in. Witty, urbane Sanders can play cunning or cruel. In this film, he actually gets to play the action hero which is something I haven’t seen him do before. I have to say Sanders makes a good comrade and foil for Johnny Jones in Foreign Correspondent.

The rest of the supporting cast is very good as well. Herbert Marshall as Mr. Fisher, Eduardo Ciannelli as Mr. Krug, and Edmund Gwenn as Rowley stand out. Albert Bassermann, who played Van Meer, was also singled out by the Academy, receiving, but not winning, a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Robert Benchley, the humorist turned actor, has a small but humorous part as the ne’er do well foreign correspondent, Stebbins.

That’s one of the things I like best about the movie and something you find repeated in Hitchcock’s films. Not only do the minor characters seem to be real three-dimensional, but there is also humor throughout, something you might not expect in a thriller. Rowley, as an example, a hardened killer, takes the time to lift up a schoolboy on a field trip so he can see the view from the Cathedral tower minutes before trying to push Johnny from it. Who else but a Hitchcock character would have a surname start in lower case, ffolliott, with a good story behind it? And who can forget the Latvian diplomat (Edward Conrad) who shows up in a couple of places in the movie. He shows the international concerns about the pending war, but he also provides a bit of comic relief.

Latvian diplomat (Edward Conrad) provides comic relief to help break the tension.

And while there is humor, there is a sense of reality to the film as well. The world was already at war when this film was made, only the U.S. wasn’t yet involved. In his radio address, Johnny Jones speaks to America the same way that Edward R. Murrow would do later. The film was released on August 16, 1940, Murrow started his broadcasts, London After Dark, on August 24, 1940, and the actual Blitz didn’t start until September 7^th. The chilling and powerful ending, calling for American vigilance still gets to me and I know I’m not the intended audience.

Director Alfred Hitchcock makes a cameo early in the film.

While I feel Hitchcock was one of the great directors, the screenwriters: Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison, chief amongst them, deserve a lot of the credit as well. Let’s also throw in Ben Hecht, who added the Johnny Jones speech at the end.

Johnny looks down on the Van Meer conspirators inside the windmill.

I know I rarely talk about the look of a film, but with Foreign Correspondent I’m going to make an exception. The cinematography and the Art Direction combine nicely here, providing many memorable set pieces, including the exterior and interiors of the Dutch windmills. I really love it when we go inside and not only see the machinations of the equipment but the thin multi-storied staircases. There is Johnny’s escape route from the fake police, out the bathroom window and out to the ledges of the Hotel Europe. The viewpoint is foreshadowing of the chase on top of Mount Rushmore in North By Northwest (1959), another Hitchcock thriller, nearly two decades later.

The camera provides an interesting point of view while Johnny makes his escape.

Some of the special effects, the home of The New York Globe and the airplane they get shot down on near the end of the film, are obvious models and we all know Hitchcock’s affinity for shooting on a sound stage, but these are minor annoyances and have to be overlooked as they don’t really take away from the movie.

The film was a modest success at the box office, but actually lost money. While critics thought of it as a glorified B movie, the film did receive six Academy nominations, including Best Original Screenplay (the first year the Academy had this category); Best Cinematography Black and White; Best Art Direction Black and White, Best Special Effects; as mentioned before Best Supporting Actor and Best Picture. Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels took notice, as well, calling Foreign Correspondent, “A masterpiece of propaganda, a first-class production which no doubt will make a certain impression upon the broad masses of the people in enemy countries.”

I would highly recommend the film. This is a ripping yarn from a master filmmaker, working from a great screenplay with really good acting. There is little not to like and so much to enjoy. The film, if you’re anything like me, will make you laugh and it will make you cry.

Stubs – It All Came True

It All Came True (1940) Starring: Ann Sheridan, Jeffrey Lynn, Humphrey Bogart, ZaSu Pitts, Una O’Connor, Jessie Busley. Directed by Lewis Seiler. Screenplay by Michael Fessler, Lawrence Kimble. Based on the short story "Better Than Life" by Louis Bromfield in Hearst's International-Cosmopolitan (Jan 1936). Produced by Jack L. Warner, Hal B. Wallis. Run time: 97 minutes. US. Black and White. Comedy, Crime, Musical, Drama

On the cusp of the 1940’s, Bogart was still a B-actor making B-movies at Warner Bros. He seemed to be a perpetual second or third on the bill, never the headliner. Known for portraying gangsters, he played it tough, but always got outsmarted or outgunned by a bigger name, like James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson.

75 years ago finds Bogart one year away from his big break, The Maltese Falcon, but it must have seemed like it was never going to happen for the 40-year-old actor. He had no way of knowing that in a year’s time he would become an icon and eventually become perhaps the biggest star Hollywood ever created.

While making It All Came True, Bogart was working on another film, the big-budget Errol Flynn western, Virginia City, in which Bogart was fourth billing behind Miriam Hopkins and Randolph Scott. Literally, for weeks he traded off between the roles, playing urban gangster in the morning and a western desperado in the afternoon.

Aspiring songwriter and piano player Tommy Taylor (Jeffrey Lynn) pins his hopes on the promises of his employer, gambler, gangster, and recluse "Chips" Maguire (Humphrey Bogart). Having finally had enough, Tommy tells Chips that he’s through and wants to quit. But the resignation is halted when the police raid Chips’ nightclub.

Taking Tommy with him, Chips escapes, but discovers that one of his associates, Monks (Herb Vigran), has betrayed him to the police. Using a gun registered to Tommy, Chips shoots and kills Monks on the spot. Chips informs Tommy in their taxi cab escape that he had Tommy carry the gun for just such a situation. If the police find the gun, Tommy will be the fall guy.

When Chips (Humphrey Bogart) discovers one of his associates, Monks,
has betrayed him, he gets his own revenge. Tommy (Jeffrey Lynn) watches.

Chips uses this to blackmail Tommy into providing him a hiding place, a theatrical boarding house owned by his mother, Nora Taylor (Jessie Busley), and her longtime friend, Maggie Ryan (Una O'Connor). Tommy hasn’t been home for five years and Nora keeps thinking up stories to explain this. She tells Maggie that Tommy will someday be a big success. They need for that to come true, because the mothers owe back taxes, less than $1200, and are on the verge of losing the boarding house to the bank.

Nora is overjoyed to see her son after such an absence and is only too happy to rent a room to Tommy’s friend, who pretends to be a man named Grasselli recovering from a nervous breakdown. The room used to belong to a long-time tenant, now dead, whose taxidermy specimens are still on display. Grasselli is told not to touch anything, nor does he want to.

By chance, Maggie's showgirl daughter, Sarah Jane (Sheridan), returns home the same day. And once again she is flat broke. While the two mothers dream of their children getting married, they’ve known each other all their lives, Tommy seems indifferent to Sarah Jane.

Sarah Jane becomes suspicious of Grasselli, since he does his best to avoid being seen. She eventually hides in the hall bathroom and recognizes him, having worked for him once. Unwilling to get Nora and Maggie in trouble, she agrees to keep Chips' secret. Chips asks her to come by and talk to him sometime since he’s going stir crazy looking at the stuffed monkeys.

Meanwhile, Sarah Jane makes up with Tommy, who she finds is writing songs. (There seems to be a rule that all sound Warner Bros. films have a song in them somewhere.) Tommy plays a couple of his compositions for her, "Gaucho Serenade" and "Angel in Disguise". He teaches her the songs and she decides they could work up an act (of course).

Sarah Jane (Ann Sheridan) finds out her old boyfriend, Tommy, also writes songs.

Nora starts mothering Chips, as does Maggie after a while. Chips, who doesn’t like mothers, now has two. Tired of hiding in his room all the time, Chips emerges and becomes acquainted with the other boarders: Miss Flint (ZaSu Pitts), Mr. Salmon (Grant Mitchell), washed-up magician The Great Boldini (Felix Bressart), and Mr. Van Diver (Brandon Tynan).

Chips doesn't like mothers, but ends up with two: Nora Taylor (Jessie Busley) and Maggie Ryan (Una O'Connor).

In honor of his coming down, the former performers put on a show for Chips. Mr. Salmon reads his original poetry and The Great Boldini does his magic act, but unwillingly, thanks to his dog, ends up doing a comedy routine. Sarah Jane and Tommy steal the show with their song and dance number.

Chips watches the other tenants perform and dreams of making the boarding house into a nightclub.

That night, when Sarah Jane learns that Nora and Maggie are about to lose their house, she turns to Chips for help. He gives her the money but tells her that it will only postpone their financial problems. He suggests (out of sheer boredom) that they set up a small exclusive nightclub, The Roaring Nineties, in the boarding house, with the added advantage that Tommy and Sarah Jane can showcase their talents. Nora is enthusiastic and makes up a story about how a successful nightclub could save them, but it takes some persuasion to get Maggie to go along.

Meanwhile, Miss Flint sees Chips' picture in a crime magazine and recognizes him as Mr. Grasselli. She confronts him and enjoys feeling control over him. Chips starts to pack to leave, but Sarah Jane knows if he leaves, the boarding house will close. Sarah Jane intimidates Miss Flint into keeping quiet, since guys like Chips have stool pigeons killed and in a gruesome manner.

Sarah Jane intimidates Miss Flint (ZaSu Pitts) to keep her from talking to the police about Chips.

On opening night, Chips makes remarks that further scare Miss Flint. Drunk on too much champagne, she becomes so frightened that she goes to the police asking to be arrested for her own protection. When she finally confesses that it’s Chips Maguire she’s afraid of, two detectives go to the nightclub to arrest Chips.

The policemen agree to let him watch the rest of the show, as he promises something if they do. Tommy sees the cops and assumes the worst, that he, too, will be arrested. He goes to the roof to be alone. When Sarah Jane joins him there, he finally admits he loves her. She urges him to flee, but he refuses to run away.

After the show, even though he can easily incriminate Tommy, Chips sees how happy Sarah Jane is with Tommy and decides to let the police take him in, even though he refuses to talk without his lawyer present.

In the end, all of Nora’s stories about love and money do seem to all come true.

Seeing how happy Sarah Jane and Tommy are, Chips decides to give himself up to the police.

Sort of an odd film, a mashup of the gangster, musical comedy, and drama. There is a murder committed early on, but the rest of the film is interesting without being tragic. While Bogart doesn’t embarrass himself, it is clear why he’s not best remembered as a comedian. The role of Chips Maguire was originally offered to George Raft, who turned it down, deeming it a Humphrey Bogart part. I don’t think that was meant as a compliment.

You almost feel sorry for Bogart, because he is clearly typecast and trapped in the B-movie universe at Warner Bros. In It All Came True, he’s playing a part he could no doubt play in his sleep by this point in his career. Still, he has a screen presence that demands the attention of the viewer. Clearly, he hasn’t earned the respect of the studio heads and is biding his time waiting for better things to come.

While this would appear to be a star-vehicle for Ann Sheridan, Sarah Jane is a role Bette Davis reportedly turned down first. Sheridan is good in the part, even if she’s not the reason I wanted to see the film.

Shapely with a head of red hair, Sheridan got into films almost as a joke. While attending North Texas State University, Sheridan’s sister, Kitty Kent, sent her photo to Paramount Pictures’ “Search for Beauty” contest. Ann, then called Clara Lou, emerged the winner of the local contest. The prize was a bit part in a Paramount Pictures film and Clara left college for Hollywood. Her first appearance in film was at the age of 19 in the movie that resulted from the contest, Search for Beauty (1934).

After playing parts at the studio where she didn’t receive screen credit and with no one trying to develop her talent-wise, she moved to Warner Bros. It was at Warners where a press agent dubbed her The Oomph Girl. While she reportedly loathed the moniker, Paul Muni convinced her that it would further her career, so she acquiesced and became an overnight sensation.

She is best remembered for her roles in films such as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Dodge City (1939), Indianapolis Speedway (1939), Torrid Zone (1940), They Drive by Night (1940), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), Kings Row (1942), Nora Prentiss (1947), The Unfaithful (1947) and I Was a Male War Bride (1949). During her career, she worked with such actors as James Cagney, George Raft, Bogart, Ronald Reagan, and Cary Grant.

Her film career slowed down considerably in the 1950s, with parts becoming harder for her to get, so she moved to television, appearing on Stop the Music (a Name That Tune type of show) in 1950, Wagon Train, and the soap opera Another World. She died in 1967 at the age of 51 of esophageal and liver cancer.

The other actor receiving billing over Bogart is Jeffrey Lynn. Lynn, a former school teacher, first appeared in Out Where the Stars Begin (1938), but received notice in Four Daughters (1938) appearing with Claude Rains, John Garfield, and the Lane Sisters: Rosemary, Lola, and Priscilla. The film spawned two sequels Four Wives (1939) and Four Mothers (1941), all including Lynn. A fourth film, Daughters Courageous (1939), has much of the same cast but is about a different family than the other three.

Following the success of Four Daughters, Lynn was screen-tested for the part of Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939). Though the part would eventually go to Leslie Howard, Lynn was used extensively in the “Search for Scarlett” screen tests. He also appeared in The Roaring Twenties (1939) and The Fighting 69^th (1940). His career was interrupted by military service during World War II, but when he came back to Hollywood he never did find his groove. He appeared in A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and Strange Bargain (1949), but his career stalled. In the 1960s, he would also appear in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Tony Rome (1967). His last appearance was on an episode of Murder, She Wrote in 1987, The Days Dwindle Down, a remake of Strange Bargain, and reunited him with his co-stars from that film, Martha Scott and Henry Morgan.

Compared to Bogart, Lynn doesn’t have the same screen presence. Again, like Sheridan, he’s good, but I can’t stop thinking he’s taking away screen time that should have gone to Bogart.

The rest of the supporting cast is pretty solid, featuring the likes of ZaSu Pitts, whose career is touched on in the review of The Plot Thickens (1936); Felix Bressart, perhaps best remembered as Pirovitch in The Shop Around the Corner (1940); Una O’Connor, who had small but memorable parts in such horror classics as Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1936); and Jessie Busley, a stage actress/comedian who appeared in only six feature films: Personal Maid (1931), Brother Rat (1938), King of the Underworld (1939), Brother Rat and a Baby (1940), It All Came True and Escape to Glory (1940).

Felix Bressart and ZaSu Pitts head up the supporting cast of It All Came True.

The film also features some rather forgettable stage acts: Tommy Reilly, The Lady Killer's Quartet, The Elderbloom Chorus, Bender and Daum, and White and Stanley; no doubt vaudeville performers getting their shot in Hollywood. I don’t believe any of them ever caught on and for good reason.

The story is strictly movie fare, in that there is no way this would really happen in real life. Realism is never a requirement for a movie, but this is obviously not ripped from the headlines, the way so many Warner Bros. gangster films seemed to have been. The main curiosity for watching the movie is Bogart. He’s still struggling with third-billing behind actors that his career would soon enough eclipse. It All Came True is a solid-B picture and no doubt provided a pleasant diversion when it was first released. Still does to this day.