Pun Salad

A 1940 thriller (set in 1939) directed by Alfred Hitchcock; we'd never seen it before. I can't recommend it unless you're an obsessive Hitchcock fan.

Joel McRea plays "Johnny Jones", a crime reporter for a New York paper. Johnny's pretty ignorant of world affairs, but this impresses the paper's cranky boss, who's bored with the stale stories served up by his existing crack European news staff. He changes Johnny's name to "Huntley Haverstock", and sends him over there on the Queen Mary. (Is this an accurate caricature of 1930s-style American journalism? Given that the New York Times employed Walter Duranty during this time, I'd say "hey, maybe!")

His first assignment is to check out a peace organization run by Stephen Fisher; Johnny is far more interested in Fisher's daughter, Carol. Spoiling things somewhat romance-wise is the apparent assassination of a diplomat. Johnny and Carol pursue the assassin with the assistance of Scott ffolliott (sic) played by smooth George Sanders. They all wind up hip-deep in a dangerous conspiracy directed from Berlin.

Nothing in the movie is particularly believable, from start to finish. The dialog (some of it written by Robert Benchley, who also has a small role) is occasionally funny, though. Johnny gives a little speech over the radio to America at the end, urging us to get into the war. (And, you may remember, we did.)