Customer Reviews

Journey Into Fear [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Spain ]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although credited to Norman Foster, and co-written by Joseph Cotton, Welles infact "supervised" (i.e. controlled) most of this production. What we get is a tight and very compact (barely over an hour in length) thriller.

Joseph Cotton plays an Engineer who someone is trying to assasinate. Trapped on a steamship crosing the black sea, he avoids attempts on his life (several of them by Welle's real life business manager, Jack Moss).

Think of "Journey..." as a practice run for "Touch Of Evil" and "The Third Man" (I know he didn't direct it but you'll see the similarities). The humour is broader, the dialogue not quite as sophisticated, but it is still Welles at work. While not a major work of Art, it is still a masterpiece of craft.

The Camera-work, as usual, is brilliant -- partucularly the interiors of the steam-ship. Welle's always worked his cameramen hard, forcing them to new heights; lighting rooms "without light", and building sets with ceilings (not a popular practice in the forties). It pays off -- the clautrophobia on board the ship is extreme, and Cotton is excellent as it's primary sufferer. Naturally the camera angles have Welles' innovative stamp all over them.

If you're a Welles fan, "Journey Into Fear" is an absolute must see; a nice precurser (thematically, chronologically, and cinematically) to "The Stranger".

And if you're not a Welle's fan, then you should give your corneas to someone more deserving.

PS:

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any plan for releasing this lost gem on DVD any time soon. A shame, since "Journey Into Fear" (with it's short running time) would make an excellent double bill DVD with another Welles film (The Stranger, for example).

Joseph Cotton plays an American munitions salesman who runs afoul of Axis agents seeking to delay his company's hard-won deal with the Turkish government... He's one of those bumbling mystery movie schnooks who keeps digging themselves in deeper and deeper, causing viewers to repeatedly smack their foreheads in disbelief... Orson Welles plays a blustering Turkish general who takes the American under his wing, perhaps protecting him, perhaps sending him to his doom. Placed on a cramped ocean liner, Cotton soon finds himself stalked by a variety of goons: which are the good guys and which are the baddies? Can you take the tension 'til you find out??

Orson Welles created some of the very best theatre, radio, and films in history, and is credited by almost everyone for making the #1 film of all time - "Citizen Kane" ( 1941). But somewhere along the line, early on, he started having problems with producers and studios, left projects unfinished, went over budget, and a whole host of problems that ultimately resulted in fewer and fewer films of lesser and lesser quality. By 1943, when this film was made, Welles was already in trouble and exhibiting many of the problems that would unhinge his career. Though his brilliance would always shine through even the shabbiest of projects he undertook, it became harder and harder to find. "Journey into Fear" is an example of this.

Several members of Welles' stock company appear in the film, including Joseph Cotton, Agnes Morehead, Everett Sloan,

Cotton was a close friend of Welles and appeared in "Citizen Kane" (1941), "Journey into Fear" (1943), "The Third Man" (1949) and "Touch of Evil (1958). He went on to star in such memorable films as "Gaslight" (1944), "Duel in the Sun" (1946) and "Portrait of Jennie" (1948), for which he won the Best Actor award at the Venice Film festival. Cotton does a great job as the munitions representative caught up in something he doesn't understand. His final remarks made sense for the 1940 novel from which it was taken, but for the 1943 film they seem strange.

Agnes Morehead earned 4 Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actress ("Magnificent Ambersons", "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte", "Johnny Belinda", "Mrs Parkington"), along with 6 Emmy nominations for her role in "Bewitched" and a win for a role in "Wild Wild West" (1965). She won two Golden Globes. She appeared with Welles in her film debut in "Citizen Kane" (1941), and then in "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942), and "Jane Eyre" (1944). Morehead's accent in this film is disturbing. It isn't necessary, and the one she produces is really poor. Only Welles' accent in "Lady from Shanghai" is worse. In any event, Morehead isn't in the film long enough to make much of a difference.

Everett Sloane appeared in more than 100 films and TV programs and was part of the Orson Welles stock company. In fact his film debut was in "Citizen Kane" (1941) as Mr. Bernstein and he appeared in this film and "Lady from Shanghai" (1948). He transitioned to TV in the early 50s and was nominated for an Emmy in 1956 for his role in the "Kraft Television Theatre". Sloane is over the top in this film, as he was in all his Welles' films. But Sloan was able to be over the top and still turn in a great performance, as he did elsewhere and as he does here.

Richard Bennett was well known in the silent era. He played Major Amberson in Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942) and "Journey" was his last film. He died in 1944 at the age of 74. Bennett has a brief but memorable role as the laughing Captain.

Ruth Warrick made her film debut in "Citizen Kane" (1941) as Kane's first wife. She went on to make more than a dozen films (although "Journey" was her last film with Welles) and then transitioned to TV where she had recurring roles in "All My Children" (1999 - 2005) as Phoebe and "Peyton Place" (1967-9) as Hannah Cord. She was nominated for an Emmy several times, but never won.

Dolores del Rio was a famous Mexican movie star who also made a mark in the U.S. Between 1946 and 1954 she won the Mexican Silver Ariel 3 times and was nominated twice more. She started in the silent era in 1925, and began a romance with Welles in 1940 when he moved to Hollywood to begin his film career. She does a good job in this film, making us wonder what exactly her agenda is.

The marvelous Hans Conried appears as a Magician (Welles himself was quite an accomplished Magician). He appeared in more than 200 films and TV shows. We know him best for his recurring roles as Uncle Tonoose in "Make Room for Daddy" (1956-63) and as the voice of Snidely Whiplash in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.

The villain of the piece is fat Jack Moss. He seems an unlikely villain as he listens to opera and worries about his appearance. But when he crushes a cracker in front of Cotton as they have dinner aboard the ship, and then devourers the soup, we know that Moss is up to the task. Moss was not an actor but a business associate of Welles and other actors.

The film is directed by Norman Foster, but Welles was also involved, although he was in a hurry to finish up and go to Brazil where he worked on the ill-fated "It's All True". In addition, he was trying to put the finishing touches on "The Magnificent Ambersons" which he never did. Rumor has it that he was responsible for the first few minutes of the film, which are certainly interesting, and which, for the first time, offer action before the credits.

Foster was a friend of Welles, a sometimes actor, and director of more than 50 films including several Charlie Chan and several Mr. Moto films in the 30s. He transitioned to TV in the 50s where he was active in various Disney projects (Davy Crockett, Zorro, Hans Brinker)

Welles is generally credited as producer, although the film was released by RKO to fulfill his 4 film contract. The screenplay is credited to Joseph Cotton but he was assisted by Welles and Ben Hecht. The prodigious Hecht worked on more than 150 screenplays, was nominated 7 times, and won twice ("Underworld" in 1927 and "The Scoundrel" in 1935). Other notable films he worked on include "Scarface" (1932), "Front Page" (1934), "Stagecoach" (1939), "Gunga Din" (1939) and "Notorious" (1946). Hecht was known as "The Shakespeare of the movies" and rightly so.

The film was made in 1942 (based on a 1940 novel) when war time films were being churned out by the dozens - "Casablanca", "In Which we Serve", "To Be or Not to Be", "Watch on the Rhine", "Lifeboat", "Forever and a Day", "Since You Went Away", "Hail the Conquering Hero", etc. When they weren't specifically addressed to WW 2, they served a patriotic purpose, such as "Yankee Doodle Dandy", "The Pride of the Yankees", and "Meet me in St Louis." In this context, "Journey into Fear" doesn't make a lot of sense, because its treatment of the war is tangential. Of course, Welles argued that the final film had little to do with his script and the editing by RKO changed it considerably. All things considered, this is probably true. During the editing of the film, Welles was fired by RKO.

The film is often identified as "film noir" but this is a mistake. While there are some noir elements (e.g., low lighting, unusual film angles, intricate plot, questions of betrayal, presence of rain and night shots) present, we are lacking the doomed hero and the femme fatale, both of which are essential to film noir.

Welles was interested in betrayal, especially male betrayal. We see this is "Citizen Kane" (Kane vs. Leland), in "Macbeth" (Macbeth vs. MacDuff), "Othello" (Iago vs. Othello), "Touch of Evil" (Quinlan vs. Menzies),"Lady from Shanghai" (O'Hara vs. Bannister vs. Grisby), etc. Superimposed on this is a homoerotic element that is often subtle, but nonetheless present. Some suggest it can be seen in this film too.

The acting is OK. Certainly the main actors were all capable of far better performances, but they perform adequately (if not admirably) in this film. The story has several holes, probably due to the deletion by the studio of more than 20 minutes.

The film will appeal to fans of Welles, for historical if no other reasons. Fans of film noir will find it disappointing, although the camera work is interesting.

The operatic approach of adding a musical dimension to menace with a killer-theme on the soundtrack has been greatly used in Orson Welles' glorious suspense film, "Journey Into Fear," where the little killer obsessively played a scratchy old 78 rpm disc of someone singing "Chagrin d'Amour."

The assassin was short and fat; his belly large, his chin and neck flabby... I do not recall him having a line of dialog to speak... But the whole film was spread with heightened menace when he sat, his little round eyes blank behind his little round pebble lenses, listening compulsively to the atrociously scratchy record, confusing the words of the song at the wrong speed, the needle jumping from groove to groove; his nerve-ends, unlike ours, immune to the discordance...

This was a spy thriller set in the wartime Near East, about an innocent American engineer (Joseph Cotten), pursued by Nazi agents and blundering from danger to danger without seeming to know too much of what it was all about...It was essentially a hunter-and-hunted story, with settings that were often seedy but always exotic...

The opening was in Istanbul, the climax in Batum, and all the terrors between were forced claustrophobically between the low ceilings and narrow partitions of a neglected little steamer plowing the Black Sea...

"Journey Into Fear" lives for its portrait gallery, its atmosphere, and for Welles' touches and excesses...

In film school people in the row behind me would whisper that this was one of several films "secretly directed" by Orson Welles, who stars in the movie as Colonel Haki woith a preposterous Istanbul accent with the stress on the last syllable of each word. He tries to steal the whole show, for he seems to have had a compulsion to wipe every other actor off the screen. However this movie has so many hams that none of them budges an inch. You only have to watch a scene or two to believe the back row gossip, for so much of it feels like you're seeing a really inferior Orson Welles production, and the actors are the same ones you only see in Welles' movies! Oh, I suppose Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead were all over the place in the 1940s, not just in the Mercury Theater, but scanning the faces of those bit players is like going through the Mercury High School Yearbook.

People say Norman Foster couldn't have directed this because all he did before were cheesy Charlie Chan movies. Well, I have news for them, those Chan programmers are excellent! I look forward to seeing some of the Foster Chans newly restored to DVD (RENO, PANAMA, TREASURE ISLAND, not a dud among them. Hope JOURNEY INTO FEAR makes it back, too, to its full length, with all the cut scenes restored, especially the rumored "Brief Encounter"-style almost-love scenes between Joseph Cotten's salesman character and the cabaret artist "played" by Dolores del Rio. The picture opens up with Ruth Warrick and Joseph Cotten, the Grahams, forcible separated in a Middle East hotel. For some reason Howard Graham just takes off with Everett Sloane, a business associate, the kind of nut who makes Peter Lorre look sober as a judge, without a second thought to how his wife will get home by herself from Turkey to America -- during wartime.

It seems like a facile excuse to free Cotten up and warm him up for Del Rio's vamp act. However with the movie chopped up as is, she postures with hideous makeup and he stays notably cool, as though she wasn't a sex bomb and he wasn't afraid for his life. Moorehead plays a Xanthippe shrew of a wife aboard a rundown freighter, and Frank Readick does a stalwart job in a thankless role you've seen a zillion times before, the henpecked schlub who finally grows some balls.

It's hard to believe that Welles & Company set out to make a film whose hero works for an armament and munitions manufacturer? Why glorify guns in 1943, well, maybe they were making some kind of hardhitting statement. The movie is fairly faithful to Eric Ambler's often praised novel, but have you ever noticed, has a really good movie ever been made out of any Ambler novel (or script)? If you ask me, in that family it was Joan Harrison who had all the talent.

"Well Mister Graham, you brought a weapon. Now what did you think you'd do with that?" -- The German Agent

"I don't know. I just thought I'd bring it along." -- A Chagrined Joseph Cotten


Exotic locations and another fine performance by the much underrated Joseph Cotten keep the viewer watching in this filming of Eric Ambler's popular wartime novel set in Turkey. Ben Hecht, Orson Welles, and Richard Collins reportedly all worked on the script, but Cotten himself received the final credit. For reasons too murky for many who have enjoyed this film, it has gotten a bad wrap over the years. It is another of those films with Orson Welles' fingerprints all over it, but as in the case of the others, he always denied helming much of it, giving the credit to Norman Foster. All of his gang is here, however, including Cotten and Moorehead, and his love at the time, gorgeous Mexican beauty Doloros del Rio.

American Howard Graham (Joseph Cotten) is writing his wife Stephanie (Ruth Warrick) a letter trying to explain how everything got so complicated as Journey Into Fear opens. He didn't really want to go with his company's representative or get involved with that exotic woman, and he especially didn't want to become the target of German agents and find himself on a rainy ledge with killers intent on delaying munition sales to allied forces. When Graham finds himself in the very real world of danger, however, rather than simply signing contracts for guns, he is a fish out of water, and must learn quickly how to swim, or sink to the bottom of the Black Sea.

Whisked away to an exotic Turkish nightclub where he meets the catsuit wearing Josette (Doloros del Rio), he finds himself called to the office of the notorious Colonel Haki when a magician in the club is killed by mistake. Welles gives another of those performances as the Colonel where you aren't quite sure if he's one of the good guys or not, and neither is Cotten's character. Graham is rushed aboard a ship bound for home for his own safety, leaving his wife behind at the hotel with only the assurances of Haki for comfort that she'll be fine. Naive in matters of real danger and intrigue, he finds himself getting closer to Josette when he discovers those out to kill him are onboard as well. Lonely and surprised at her receptiveness, he relies on her more when who he can trust becomes ever murkier.

Doloros del Rio was such a huge star during the silent era she was known as the female Valentino. Born into a wealthy family in Durango, Mexico, this second cousin to Ramone Navarro was full of beauty and passion which was not always displayed to great advantage once sound came along. In the early 1940's she found a new career in Mexican cinema, however, where she flourished in films often helmed by Emillo Fernandez. Reportedly the great love of Welles' life, she worked to help orphans in her later years. Unfortunately, she's mostly ornamental in Journey Into Fear, but viewers who never got the chance to see her in silent films or in Mexican cinema can catch a glimpse here, albeit in a supporting role.

The audience sympathizes with Cotten's character because as always, he is just like us. An offer he isn't sure he can refuse culminates in a daring escape and Graham heaves a sigh of relief, believing he has eluded the killers. But he'll find a surprise waiting once he reaches his wife, and Haki may not be able to save him on a rainy ledge with two men bent on destroying him. While this film doesn't offer edge of your seat thrills, it is fun to watch, and almost impossible not to enjoy. Cotten is just terrific once again and shows the reason why a genius like Welles thought so highly of him. A film that comes in just under 70 minutes, it is never boring and you find yourself rooting for the naive American to get home to his wife before anyone can nab him. Despite the fact that Welles would part company with RKO after this film, it is quite entertaining when viewed today.

Orson Welles' movie before this one & not realize, he's all over it. A rather good but too short war thriller with Welles regulars. Welles is in it so is Joseph Cotten. He's Howard Graham, an American Engineer in World War II Turkey with lots of info, in his head. The Nazi are going to kill him. They don't want him to be replace too quickly. Maybe delay him for a while, then kill him. We know the assassins, but the suspense is still there. How does Mr. Graham get out of it? Early noir before it had a name.

This is one of the first films of our Mexican Diva Dolores del Río, made in USA in 1943. The story is very interesting about suspense at that time.
I was looking for this film on DVD since several years ago. I recommend it for collectors of all works about Dolores del Rio.

Dark atmosphere and claustrophobic effects dominate this Orson Welles adaptation of the Eric Ambler novel about munitions smuggling in Turkey. It's spy vs. spy as a band of Nazi sympathizers attempts to bump off American dealer Joseph Cotten. The acting, mostly by Welles's Mercury Theatre gang, is very good, especially Cotten. The action, however, generally fails to build; even the chase scenes - one on the ledge of a hotel building in a driving rainstorm - seem uncharacteristically bland for Welles. Filled with quirky camera angles and stylistic experimentation, the movie still manages to disappoint in the long run: one expects more from this masterful crew.

I was fairly optomistic when I watched the opening cast and credits of "Journey Into Fear". The Mercury Theater troupe were featured throughout the cast with Orson Welles sneaking in the last billing. The story was from a book by Eric Ambler. I've read some of Ambler; not the best but pretty good nonetheless. The shortcoming may have been the director; Norman Foster. I didn't see much that he had added to the production. I looked him up and found he was mostly utilized with Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan movies before later branching into TV. Maybe it was watching Hitchcock's "Number Seventeen" and "The Lady Vanishes" just before watching "Journey Into Fear" that left me blaming the director. However, someone's to blame for the lack of impact of a supposedly suspenseful movie. The thing just seemed to bounce from scene to scene with decent acting but minimal attention to character development. At a key point in the movie, I had seen so little of one character that I had him mixed up with another. Thus I was surprized that he "reappeared" after he was murdered. A director is supposed to pay attention to such details.

It's hard to imagine that Welles didn't provide some input to the directing but he did provide plenty of input to the acting. His role as Colonel Haki was the highlight of the movie although he did slip a notch or two when the script required him to be an action character. He was very impressive as the interrogator.

The story is that of an American OSS-type beaurocrat who was in the Middle East on assignment. He is targeted for assassination and escapes with the aid of a dubious character (Welles). He sets out on a ship across the Black Sea to Istanbul along with a very strange group of fellow passengers. I'll leave it at that. With a time of under 70 minutes, this movie had room for better plot and character development and could have turned out much better. As it was, it was turned out in 1943 when there wasn't a lot of time, money or talent to do it right. For the Welles aficianados, this is an important film. For everyone else, just be thankful it's as short as it is.