Foreign Correspondent (1940)

My love affair with director Alfred Hitchcock began in grade school. I saw his name on some books in my school library. They were anthology books with titles like 'Alfred Hitchcock's Stories of Suspense.' The books were probably offshoots of Hitchcock's successful television shows. Inside were stories of mystery and suspense by the best authors in the suspense genre (Robert Bloch and Daphne du Maurier to name a couple) and there was usually an introduction by Hitchcock (or an editor pretending to be Hitchcock). Hitchcock's famous image would be on the book. Who was this Hitchcock guy, I wondered? Even his name was creepy. Hitch...cock. So then, I grabbed one of the school's Encyclopedia Britannica's and looked him up and discovered he was a film director. The encyclopedia listed some of his film credits and they had strange, macabre titles. VERTIGO, PSYCHO, SPELLBOUND, NOTORIOUS, and FRENZY to name a few. Thus, began my infatuation with Alfred Hitchcock and his amazing films.

If you watch an Alfred Hitchcock film in 2010, they may seem a bit dated, but during his long and illustrious career, Hitchcock pushed the limits in story, sound, editing, special effects, and set design. One of his first films in the United States after early film success in England was the the spy thriller FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940).  Written by Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison, Hitchcock seems to swing for the fences in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, his first of two World War II thrillers he would make (1942's SABOTEUR being the other). It has all the Hitchcock motifs and themes that he started to show in his early career and would explore and use over and over during his American period. Set during the brink of England's involvement in World War II, the story opens with American newspaper publisher Powers (Harry Davenport) sending inexperienced but ambitious reporter Johnny Jones (Joel McCrae) to London as a foreign correspondent to dig up news on the impending war in Europe. Powers gives Jones a new pseudonym (Huntly Haverstock) and a lead regarding a Dutch politician named Van Meer (Albert Basserman) who is one of two signers on a treaty with Belgium that could prevent war.

As film fate happens, reporter Jones catches a cab with Van Meer in London on his way to a speaking engagement and almost lands his scoop but Van Meer isn't biting. Jones tries again when he follows Van Meer to Amsterdam but instead witnesses Van Meer's apparent assassination. Jones jumps into a car driven by an English reporter Scott ffolliot (George Sanders) and his friend Carol Fisher (Lorraine Day) and chases the assassins to a windmill hideout outside of Amsterdam. The killers escape but Jones and his new friends stay on the hunt, uncovering a nest of murderous spies, led by the leader of a peace organization (Herbert Marshall), bent on bringing war to England.

In FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT Hitchcock gets to unleash all his favorite themes: the innocent hero who stumbles into a nefarious situation; the suave villain; a bad guy falling from a very high place; and the MacGuffin, a plot device to move the story but that really has no payoff. In CORRESPONDENT, the MacGuffin is the clause in the treaty that has never been written down, just memorized by Van Meer. CORRESPONDENT also has amazing set pieces: the windmill hideout; the assassination sequence in a rainy, crowded Amsterdam square; and a terrifying plane crash in the North Atlantic. CORRESPONDENT is Hitchcock's practice run that he will fulfill beautifully with a somewhat similar NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959).

Actors Joel McCrae and Lorraine Day are decent as the leads but they aren't the big Hollywood stars that Hitchcock wanted (Gary Cooper turned down the reporter role). FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is Hitchcock's initiation to the Hollywood studio system (he made REBECCA the same year but with actors that producer David O. Selznick had hand picked).  McCrae is better suited in comedies like Preston Sturges THE PALM BEACH STORY (1942) but he grows on you in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT as the naïve American reporter. As Hitchcock became a bigger director in America, he would work with the likes of Cary Grant, James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Montgomery Clift, Eva Marie  Saint, Henry Fonda, and Ingrid Bergman.

However, the supporting cast more than makes up for the lack of star quality. Herbert Marshall as Stephen Fisher, leader of the Fisher Peace organization (and ironically the bad guy trying to incite war with England) is the blueprint of Hitchcock villainy. Sophisticated, polite, and a good father yet not against hiring killer Rowley (Edmund Gwenn who would later play Santa Claus in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET) to kill his daughter Carol's reporter boyfriend Johnny Jones. George Sanders overwhelms Joel McCrae as ffolliot, a fellow reporter helping to find the real Van Meer and stop the spy plot. At one point in the film, Sanders actually becomes the lead as he infiltrates a hotel where the bad guys are interrogating Van Meer (in a chillingly brutal scene for 1940) while McCrae disappears from the screen for about 20 minutes. For whatever reason, Sanders never reached Cary Grant or James Stewart stardom but he's fun to watch in this. Lastly, for comic relief, Robert Benchley (author Peter Benchley's father) as Stebbins, an American reporter working with Jones, provides laughs between the suspenseful scenes.

For me, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT is a showcase for Hitchcock to American studios to show what he would be capable of. It's an ambitious film with special effects and visual tricks that still amaze me with their verve and ingenuity even today. I also like the pace of the film. Screenwriters Bennett and Harrison jam an awful lot of plot and action into two hours so the coincidences keep the film speeding along. Jones bumping into Van Meer immediately upon arriving in London; the villain Fisher's daughter Carol being in the chase car that picks up Jones after the assassination, and all of the major characters on the same plane to New York and subsequent plane crash may be coincidence but Hitchcock and his team do such a great job of telling this thriller that we the audience are happy to go along for the ride.

Dead Poets Society (1989)

In the early 80's, Walt Disney's film department was hurting. Their animated cartoons weren't doing very well, their comedies were beginning to seem outdated, they needed a kick start. Touchstone Pictures, a branch of Disney Studios, was formed, a place where Disney could make more mainstream films with adult themes and even R-rated comedies. It saved Disney. Touchstone films like SPLASH (1984), TIN MEN (1987), and DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS (1986) were both critically acclaimed and financially successful.

DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989) was another Touchstone hit that I don't think I was overly impressed with when I first saw it. I found it too sentimental. I wasn't a huge Robin Williams fan. Maybe I wasn't far enough removed from school to be able to reflect on the pressure and angst students feel from their parents and peers that DEAD POETS is about. But a second viewing has me finding plenty to like about the film.

First of all, it has one of the coolest movie titles. DEAD POETS SOCIETY. Imagine Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Robert Frost, and Percy Shelley hanging out together, playing chess, sharing a good cigar, swapping stories about past girlfriends. A good title hooks you right away.

Another plus is that Australian Peter Weir is the director of DEAD POETS SOCIETY. Having already made a film about the mysterious disappearance of school girls in PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975), Weir is very much at ease with the universe of teachers and students. Many of Weir's favorite themes pop up in DEAD POETS as well. Instead of young men going off to war in GALLIPOLI (1981), it's younger men going off to private school. Weir also likes having his characters be outsiders in the environments they must inhabit such as police detective Harrison Ford undercover in the Amish community in WITNESS (1985) or reporter Mel Gibson covering political unrest in Jukarta in THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1981). With DEAD POETS SOCIETY, it's Robin Williams as the new, unorthodox poetry teacher in the rigid college prep school institution.

The film opens with another school year beginning at Wilton Academy, sometime in the 1950's, somewhere in the East (Delaware to be precise). We're introduced to the boys we'll be following throughout the year, each with their own doubts and dreams. Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) dreams of acting while his father (Kurtwood Smith) bullies him to be a doctor. Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke) can't live up to his older brother's scholastic reputation. Knox Overstreet (Josh Charles) yearns for the unrequited love of an older high school girl. These young men and their classmates are all plodding toward careers as physicians, lawyers, and engineers.

But their relatively normal school lives are forever changed by new poetry teacher, John Keating (Robin Williams), a former student himself of Wilton. Keating's unusual teaching methods and his mantra "Carpe Diem" or "Seize the Day" inspire the young students to release themselves from the constraints of conformity. When Neil discovers Keating's yearbook photo and the name Dead Poets Society, he brings it to his classmates attention and they question Keating about it. He explains what the club was and the boys form their own Dead Poets Society, finding a cave in the nearby woods to smoke, read poetry, play the saxophone, even bring girls. As the boys begin to flourish in their new found freedom, a terrible tragedy occurs that reverberates through Wilton Academy and finds Mr. Keating the scapegoat.

My favorite sequence in DEAD POETS SOCIETY is opening night for Neil in the school's production of A Midsummer's Night Dream. He's clearly having the time of his life as Puck and then his father Mr. Perry shows up to destroy his dream and pull him out of school, a decision that will have dire consequences. Director Weir captures the exhilaration and anguish perfectly. This sequence haunts me even today.

DEAD POETS was Williams first serious role and he stays restrained for most of the film, occasionally reverting into comedic Williams but director Weir keeps him in character for the most part. There is nice camaraderie between the boys and Williams and Williams does a fine job of letting the young actors shine. Williams has definitely grown as an actor since DEAD POETS but this film got his dramatic side off to a decent start.

I use to get actors Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke mixed up as they looked quite similar to me so it's ironic that they are paired together in the film. Both are excellent as is Josh Charles. Leonard has a face almost to beautiful to be a student. He's leader to his classmates yet subservient to his father and plays both wonderfully. Hawke is equally good as the introverted and awkward young man who's parents give him the same birthday present two years in a row. And Charles gets the one romantic part and carries it off with youthful aplomb. All three actors, now in their early 40's, have continued to shine in films and TV - Leonard is a regular on the TV show HOUSE; Hawke in films like TRAINING DAY (2001) and SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS (1999), and Charles currently in the TV drama THE GOOD WIFE. It's refreshing to see that not all young actors overdose or end up on reality TV shows.

Watching DEAD POETS SOCIETY 21 years later got me reflecting on my formative years. I didn't go to a college prep school, just a nice public education but there is much to be said about a good teacher like John Keating and the role teachers play in our lives. I was reminded of past teachers I had like my 10th grade history teacher Mr. Swofford who taught me that classical art and music can be cool. Or Mrs. Floberg who let my creative side flourish on essays and journals that I had to write. Or Mr. Copley who introduced me to Supply-Side economics. Or Mr. Schuman who gave me a Super 8 film camera. Teachers can make a difference.