Fox did the best 1940s propaganda films. Cranked them out, I imagine. I’ve only seen a couple others and then Hitchcock’s awful effort, Saboteur.

Berlin Correspondent might steal its name from Hitchcock’s excellent Foreign Correspondent but that’s about it. Foreign is sort of globetrotting. Berlin is… Berlin-trotting. Dana Andrews is great, as Dana Andrews usually is, and the female lead is decent: Virginia Gilmore. She did very little, but she’s kind of like the Fox-variant of Jane Wyman. Sig Ruman shows up in a funny part and there’s a great Nazi bad guy (Martin Kosleck, a native German who left when the Nazis came into power).

Berlin Correspondent runs almost seventy minutes and is never boring. The film asks the audience to accept a great deal of stupidity, but it’s fine. We invest in the performances and the promise of an amusing diversion. It’s a film that exemplifies the lost genre of a good way to waste some time….

(Though I did have schoolwork to do, so I didn’t actually have any time to waste).

★½

CREDITS

Directed by Eugene Forde; written by Jack Andrews and Steve Fisher; director of photography, Virgil Miller; edited by Fred Allen; music by David Buttolph; produced by Bryan Foy; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Virginia Gilmore (Karen Hauen), Dana Andrews (Bill Roberts), Mona Maris (Carla), Martin Kosleck (Captain von Rau), Sig Ruman (Dr. Dietrich), Kurt Katch (Weiner) and Erwin Kalser (Mr. Hauen).