Robert Benchley was allowed to write his own lines.
Albert Bassermann (who played the Dutch diplomat Van Meer) couldn't speak a word of English and learned all his lines phonetically.
Walter Wanger bought the rights to Vincent Sheean's political memoir "Personal History" (New York: Doubleday, 1935) for $10,000 in 1935. After 16 writers and five years, the script became the basis for this film.
Alfred Hitchcock originally wanted Joan Fontaine for the female lead. But David O. Selznick refused to loan Joan Fontaine to Walter Wanger Productions for 'Foreign Correspondent'.
Director Alfred Hitchcock wanted Gary Cooper for the lead instead of Joel McCrea, but Cooper wasn't interested in doing a thriller.
In a 1972 interview with Dick Cavett, Alfred Hitchcock revealed that the plane crash scene was filmed by using footage shot from a stunt plane diving on the ocean, rear projected on rice paper in front of a cockpit set. Also behind the rice paper were two chutes aimed at the cockpit's windshield connected to large tanks of water. With the press of a button at the right moment, water came crashing through the rice paper, into the plane simulating the plane crashing into the sea from the cockpit view.
Producer Walter Wanger and director 'Alfred Hitchcock' clashed repeatedly during shooting. Wanger kept wanting to have the script rewritten with every news story reporting changes in the European situation. Hitchcock, who hated making a movie without the script in absolutely final form before shooting began, pointed out that even if the film were up-to-date at the time of shooting it would be out of date by the time he finished post-production and it was ready for release.
Producer Walter Wanger had the story in development for several years. Originally it was about the Spanish Civil War but that war ended too quickly and therefore the story lost its relevance to audiences. Wanger insisted that the film be politically up-to-date so rewrites were happening constantly throughout production. Ultimately, 14 writers in all were involved in bringing the story to the screen.
Shooting was completed on May 29, 1940, after which Alfred Hitchcock made a visit to England. He returned on July 3 with the word that the Germans were expected to start bombing at any time. Ben Hecht was hurriedly called in and wrote the tacked-on final scene set at a London radio station. It was filmed on July 5, and the real-life bombing started on July 10, 1940.
The ending with Joel McCrea delivering a propaganda broadcast as bombs fall on London was written (by Ben Hecht) and shot after the rest of the film was completed. It replaced a more sardonic ending in which Folliott (George Sanders) tells Haverstock (McCrea) how the Germans will likely cover up the incidents depicted in the main part of the film.
This was Alfred Hitchcock's second American film - he was hired out to producer Walter Wanger by David O. Selznick with whom he was contracted.
When the shipwreck sequence was shot, a special tub within the studio tank had to be built for Herbert Marshall, who couldn't swim because he only had one leg (he'd lost a leg in combat in World War I).
When this movie was made, America was not part of World War II. At this time, a number of Hollywood studios were pro-American involvement in the war. This movie is one of a number of films made during the late 1930s and early 1940s that represented pro-American intervention in the war. These films include: A Yank in the R.A.F., Man Hunt, Foreign Correspondent, The Mortal Storm, Confessions of a Nazi Spy and Sergeant York.
Alfred Hitchcock:
early in the movie walking past Johnny Jones' hotel reading a newspaper.