To the makers of "Foreign Correspondent" the War is a matter of purely secondary importance. To Mr. Alfred Hitchcock in particular it is merely a road to his happy hunting grounds--a weird land of rain and mist where he can revel in his clement, suspense. Genially he takes you on a tour through croaking old windmills and murky side streets, pointing out the sights until your eyes bulge out of their sockets, and enjoying his own depravity intensely. For Mr. Hitchcock is a sadist, and "Foreign Correspondent" is a rhapsody in sadism, an apotheosis of the Horrid.

So far we have only talked of Mr. Hitchcock, and it is not quite unjustified that this should be so. For, however capable the performances of Joel McCrea and Albert Bassermann, however funny the prating of Robert Benchley, they are all but puppets in the Master's hands. Likewise the wild story about the kidnapping of a Dutch statesman by a Nazi spy-ring is more form than contents. The only concession to reality is the final appeal to the United States to steel herself against aggression a scene of piercing terror which shows Mr. Hitchcock still in firm control. To the very end, "Foreign Correspondent" remains his show. The result is that the thriller has reached a height that it will be difficult to surpass.