1940 – Albert Basserman
Foreign Correspondent
Now here’s a name I’ve never heard of before, but I have to say, he did such a great job. His part in the film was small but mighty. So, he played the character of Van Meer, a Dutch diplomat. The actor was actually German, but his accent sound foreign and convincing enough. And he really looked the part.
There were a number of things that really made his performance stand out as incredible. There were several facets to his character that Basserman played to perfection. On the one hand, a slightly dotty old man, masking a politically evasive diplomat, on the other, a fully aware politician. On the one hand, a recently sedated captive, on the other, a fully drugged victim of brainwashing. And it was in these later scenes, where his mind has been worn down, where Basserman’s acting skills really shined.
I’ve said before that acting believably drunk is not easy. But here, the actor had to be sober, and then slowly lose it as the sedatives take effect. He was really good. Watch his eyes as they lose focus. You can see his head start to swim. Then in his last scene, he is being brainwashed as his captors try to get him to tell them secret information, he is fully drugged. He doesn’t know where he is, or what is real. He barely recognizes his friend, Fisher. Basserman was so good in this scene. But then, when they give up and a thug starts to murder him, off screen, he begins to spill his secrets.
But before that he gives a little anti-war/anti-violence speech that I’m sure went a long way to earning him his Best Supporting Actor nomination. He says “You can do what you want with me. That’s not important. But you’ll never conquer them, Fisher. Little people everywhere who give crumbs to birds, lie to them. Drive them. Whip them. Force them into war, where the beasts like you will devour each other, then the world will belong to the little people.”
That was a pretty powerful speech that spoke to more than just that other characters in the movie. It spoke to the movie-going audiences. And it was very intentional by the film’s director. Basserman did a great job delivering the message from Hitchcock.. I almost might have awarded him the Oscar instead of Walter Brennan, but I’m not sure. It must have been a tight race.