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21 out of 24 people found the following review useful: Of such strokes is suspense made…, 24 April 2005 Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico
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…
22 out of 29 people found the following review useful: Wartime noir thriller with Cotten and Welles, 5 March 2006 Author: netwallah from The New Intangible College
Wartime noir crafted from an Eric Ambler thriller, with a screenplay by lead actor Joseph Cotton with Orson Welles, and the influence of Orson Welles is everywhere. He produced and designed the film, and speculation is that he lost control at some point in the production, that RKO brought in another director to take over the project, and that extreme cuts were made. The run time is very short, just 68 minutes. Character development (other than Cotten as protagonist) seems spotty and and events seem to accelerate in the last third of the film, an acceleration not explained by the escalating excitement of the story-line. Nonetheless, the film works as a splendid admixture of wartime intrigue and film noir, and bears the mark of Welles's vision, the strong camera angles, the shadowy sets, the large and small spaces, the cutting. Cotten is fine as Howard Graham, a naval engineer whose assistance to the Turkish navy the Nazis would like to cut short. The plot has a many intricacies and concealed identities, but the strongest character by far is the Turkish head of intelligence, Col. Haki, played by Welles as a powerful, shrewd, smart man with a trace of self-mocking humour. The propaganda function of the film—including its indirect persuasion directed to the U.S. about joining the effort to defeat the Nazis—is very well handled.
23 out of 32 people found the following review useful: The Emperor's wearing no clothes in this one, 10 February 2006 Author: blanche-2 from United States
Joseph Cotten plays an American armaments engineer on the run from the Nazis in "Journey into Fear," a 1943 film with a script by Cotten (from a story by Eric Ambler) and costarring Orson Welles and Delores del Rio. Cotten is working on a deal to supply Turkey with weapons to fight the Axis. The Nazis don't want the deal made and are trying to stop Cotten from getting back to the U.S.There are some very exciting scenes in this extremely atmospheric film, in particular on the ledge of a building between Cotten and the terrifying assassin. Most of the film takes place on board a dingy ship where Cotten is taken, thus beginning his Kafka-esquire nightmare.This is an entertaining film for sure, but I've always been troubled by it. First of all, it seems like there are scenes missing. Second, it's on the confusing side since there are irrelevant characters thrown in. Third, you can drive a truck through some of the plot holes. Fourth, the ending to me has always felt abrupt.Suspenseful? Yes. Intriguing? Yes. Ultimately disappointing? Yes. Cotten is good as a man blundering through something he can't quite figure out - the problem is, the audience can't quite figure it out either. Welles has a small but effective role as Dr. Haki.Strong on style, weak on substance.
18 out of 24 people found the following review useful: Visually arresting...but quirky and bizarre tale of murky espionage..., 25 May 2005 Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.
Somewhere along the way, someone took scissors to this film and left it with plot holes that don't connect. Despite the obvious flaws in continuity and plotting, Eric Ambler's novel has been so changed in transferring it to the screen that he didn't even recognize it as his own story, according to Robert Osborne of TCM.The marquee value of Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles is likely to lure viewers into thinking they will see another classic along the lines of THE THIRD MAN. Not so. This is a visually interesting espionage yarn, very little of which is coherent and much of which leaves the viewer in as much confusion as Joseph Cotten's character is. Whom should he trust and who is really trying to kill him?Cotten plays a U.S. Naval engineer aboard a dilapidated freighter who learns that Nazi agents are planning to kill him. The usual Welles Mercury Theater players fill the supporting roles, along with the beautiful Dolores Del Rio. Once the film leaves the claustrophobic freighter and shows Cotten running from his captors, it takes on heightened interest. The scenes in the torrential rain are wonderfully staged and the B&W cinematography gives the illusion of menace in every shadow.But there is virtually no coherent plot and Welles is completely wasted in a small role that he underplays. While the credits say that Norman Foster directed, it is highly probable that Welles himself directed much of it. Perhaps it all made more sense before the running time was cut down to 71 minutes.Ruth Warrick has a couple of nice moments as Cotten's patient wife but none of the characters are fleshed out enough to really understand or care about. Cotten gives his usual workmanlike performance but it all ends with a rather abrupt finish, much ado about nothing.Too many weaknesses to call a classic.
13 out of 18 people found the following review useful: A justified classic., 22 August 1999 Author: Teotihuacan from Melbourne, Australia
Deceptively baffling yet brilliant World War II spy thriller, effectively started by the great Orson Welles, and taken out of his hands. Considering the fact that it is nearly 60 years old, it remains a potent tale and in many places is far more nerve-wrenching than many of today's offerings. Joseph Cotten (Who scripted this adaptation of the Eric Ambler novel, with Welles) shines, as a perfectly naive and at times arrogant American, but it is Welles' Colonel Haki that just manages to steal the show. Brilliant.
8 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Did He or Didn't He?, 15 February 2007 Author: theowinthrop from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
JOURNEY INTO FEAR was one of the original five mystery - spy - thrillers of Eric Ambler, and while not as strong as A COFFIN FOR DEMETRIOS is a better then average story. He introduces his head of the Turkish Secret Police, Col. Haki, who would reappear in DEMETRIOS. He also continued looking (as Ambler did) on the precarious but desperate attempt to keep Turkey neutral in World War II.The story is simple. Turkey in 1940 has hired an American engineer, Howard Graham, to help do some rearmament work on their ships and fortifications in the Black Sea and the Dardenelles. Graham can get away with this (supposedly) because in 1940 the United States (like Turkey) was still neutral. But Nazi agents are interested in these changes. Graham (who is traveling with his wife) finds that both are endangered, especially after there is an attack on his life at a nightclub. He sends Mrs. Graham ahead to Baku from Ankara, and he takes a boat to hopefully trap the German agents. The only person who knows what he is up to is Col. Haki, who has an agent on the same tramp steamer as Graham is on. But the agent is murdered, and Graham (in the close confines of the steamer) is constantly facing the two Germans who are involved, and there are no apparent people he can turn to. Or are there?He reaches Baku, and just manages to evade the Germans. But how long can he do so, without endangering his wife or himself? Will Col. Haki show up to help?The film has gotten into the Welles' legend as an example of how KANE's after effects led to Welles losing control over films and being branded a second-rater. He was to produce and direct JOURNEY INTO FEAR but he was also producing and directing THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSOMS and then sent by the government to Latin America to do IT'S ALL TRUE. AMBERSONS was cut to ribbons by Robert Wise and a new ending tacked on. IT'S ALL TRUE was abandoned when pressure from the Brazilian dictator, Getulio Vargas was applied in Washington (Welles had taken a dim view of Vargas and his so-called populism regarding fisherman in poor communities on the northern coast of Brazil - the third section of the film dealt with a visible protest by the fisherman). JOURNEY was filmed in 1942. Welles later was gracious, and said the film was directed by Norman Foster, but there seems evidence that Welles did more than produce the film. Certainly he had an affect - scenes are shot showing ceilings, and special camera angles appear. Also his agent Jack Moss was used to play the part of a Nazi assassin (a silent, but effective part). So were Mercury players from Broadway, Radio, and CITIZEN KANE: Joseph Cotton (as Graham), Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warwick, and Everett Sloan, and one Mercury player from AMBERSOMS (Richard Bennett). A dancer - adventuress was played by Dolores Del Rio, who at the time was having a love affair with Welles. While a producer could arrange for his girlfriend to pop up in a bit part in a film (or if she is a good actress in a better part), it's rare for producers to put most of their friends into a film unless they size up the roles fit the friends. It is obvious that Welles had more to his role as producer than just watching the balance sheet. The acting is good, Welles being his usual commanding "man of mystery" here, with twisted nose and astrakhan hat. Cotton is sufficiently increasingly nervous (especially for wife Ruth Warwick)to make the claustrophobia of the ship scenes more realistic. There are great set pieces, such as the introduction of the film where Moss is shown preparing for his assassination mission in his hotel room, carefully grooming his untidy self, to a broken record, and then leaving his rooms. In it's length to the conclusion it resembles how Welles planned to originally open TOUCH OF EVIL with the assassination of Rudy Linnaker. The shooting at the nightclub (involving Hans Conried in an early good performance) was pretty good too. It is not the greatest thriller, but it is more than ordinary in it's production and result and worth watching.
7 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Take Your Best Shot At Joseph Cotten, 20 March 2007 Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
While returning from a conference munitions expert Joseph Cotten and his wife Ruth Warrick are taken to a nightclub in Istanbul by the mysterious Edward Sloane where Cotten is almost killed. Magician Hans Conreid is a victim of his own slight of hand, but it's Cotten who's the target as Orson Welles as the Turkish police inspector deduces. Welles's solution get Cotten out of the country so if he's killed at least it won't be on his watch. Welles books passage on a tramp freighter for Cotten and the freighter is loaded with highly interesting characters, one of whom at least is a Nazi assassin.This was another Mercury Theater production with most of the regulars from Citizen Kane/The Magnificent Ambersons back again. Welles's police inspector is a small, but crucial part of the story. Welles, for whatever reason is being unduly modest. Journey Into Fear is undoubtedly the greatest film that Orson Welles never took credit for directing. I can find certain touches here from Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and The Stranger. If he didn't officially direct you can take it to the bank that Norman Foster knew exactly what Welles was trying to get out of each and every scene.Look also here for a good performance by Mexican cinema great Dolores Del Rio as a most mysterious femme fatale on the freighter.Journey Into Fear is a short film, slightly less than 70 minutes running time. I'm sure that RKO had it playing at the bottom end of double features. Maybe we'll see a 'director's cut' of this one day and know what Welles's own perspective was.
9 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Atmospheric and enjoyable thriller but far from the classic that the names involved suggest it will be, 29 May 2005 Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK
Howard Graham is an American engineer returning from Istanbul with his wife Stephanie. A close call in a Turkish nightclub sees a man assassinated by mistake when really Howard was the target and he and his wife are quickly taken to the Turkish secret police. Colonel Haki informs him that he is a target of the Nazis and immediately gets him transit out of the country on the next available boat while he protects his wife. However Howard quickly finds that he is far from being out of danger as his pursuers are on the boat as well.With keys part of the Third Man cast involved in this thriller, I decided to take a look and had hoped for a film that perhaps would be as enjoyable as that. However it was not quite all that I hoped it would have been as I didn't find myself that gripped by it. The early scenes suggest a real mystery with a good pace but quickly the mistaken assassination of the magician is slowed down and complicated by unnecessary characters and dialogue, some of which seemed to serve very little purpose other than setting up some other scenes later on. With Mrs Howard away somewhere out of vision and therefore out of mind, we focus on the action on other boat and, although quite tense at points, it didn't have the sort of sustained tension that should have been made easier by the confined location of the boat. It does enough to engage though and I did find it quite enjoyable but those claiming this as a classic up there with some of Welles' other films are mistaken because this is only quite good – not any more than that.The cast was the reason I was here but they were not as good as they have been in other films. Cotton is a bit brash and loud and aspects of his character aren't brought out that well; he was still an interesting leading man but mainly because I have always liked him. Welles has a small role and seems to enjoy himself playing a role that has little screen time but is mentioned throughout the film; I'm not sure if he did direct his own scenes but that is the rumour. Del Rio is sexy and a nice presence but I wasn't overly taken by her other than that. Moss tends to steal the film with his big character lurking around early on, meanwhile the rest of the support are OK, with other languages being spoken rather than the usual American actors putting on vague accents as was often the case (and still is!). Assuming that he did direct the majority, if not all, of the film (and I do believe this) Foster does a very good job of working with shadows in early scenes and in the boat – some of his angles are effective, although it is easy to see (with some of his shots) why people generally believe that it was Welles calling the shots.Overall this is an enjoyable thriller with a dark atmosphere brought out by good direction throughout. The cast are OK but none of the famous faces really stood out for me here, meanwhile the plot was not as tight as it needed to be, leaving some holes and using some distracting plot devices along the way. Still worth seeing but not the classic that it is often touted around as being.
9 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Engaging Noir with a healthy dose of humor from Welles., 25 January 2005 Author: stephen-357 from United States
Not the noir masterpiece we've come to expect with the likes of Welles and Cotton in the cast, but still an engaging film with cleverly shot scenes, witty dialog, and suspense. Joseph Cotton plays Howard Graham; an American armaments engineer in the midst of a deal designed to supply Turkey, a U.S. ally, with weapons to fight the axis. The axis, in particular the nazi's, have other ideas and are determined to prevent Graham from reaching the shores of the U.S. to seal the deal. During a magician's act at a club in the heart of Istanbul, a hit man mistakenly kills the magician instead of graham - or was it really a mistake? Graham is immediately questioned by the head of the Turkish secret police Colonel Haki (played with joyful exuberance by Welles) and for his protection, and the interests of the Turkish military, is put on a ship deemed the "safest" route back to the U.S. Of course this is not the case and the ship is filled with a cast of menacing characters, many not what or whom they seem. JOURNEY INTO FEAR is most enjoyable for its humorous subplots that are eluded to, but never explicitly. When Graham had to suddenly disappear he left behind a wife, and Colonel Haki has taken upon himself the duty to inform her of the crisis but elects to mislead, indirectly suggesting that Graham is a womanizer, with the possible objective to seduce her in this weakened state. "What's to become of me?" She asks. "We'll think of something." Is Haki's coy reply. And so it goes.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Good illustration/adaptation of the classic suspense novel, 12 September 2000 Author: (ricardoramos@hotmail.com) from San Francisco Bay Area
`Journey Into Fear' certainly has an Orson Welles look. Although he received neither directing nor writing credit (credit went to Norman Foster and Joseph Cotten, respectively), I think that most of what is there is his. The problem is that there is not enough there there. The on-board relationships should have been developed more. All of them seem perfunctory.Combining the shooting by a good marksman who misses his target and stalking him in the nightclub are combined into an altogether more satisfying single event.The escape from the Nazis is more protracted and less violent than in Eric Ambler's book. It is very noirish and photogenic, and the combination of wet chase and the presence of a murky character played by Orson Welles and an all-American one played by Joseph Cotten prefigure `The Third Man.' Joseph Cotten had some of the same American innocence and ready outrage in both films. He's an important munitions engineer here and a hack western writing there. He doesn't get the dark beauty (Alida Valli or Dolores del Rio) in either, though he has and keeps a wife in `Journey.'The film probably makes sense to those unfamiliar with the book (and such viewers aren't distracted by thinking about what's been changed). It is suspenseful even for someone like me who recently read the book
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