Main Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Del Rio, Ruth Warrick, Orson Welles, Jack Durant, Agnes Moorehead
Release Year: 1942
Country: US
Run Time: 71 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
Orson Welles had planned to produce, direct and star in RKO's Journey Into Fear, but prior commitments compelled him to vacate the director's chair in favor of Norman Foster. Joseph Cotten, who starred as an American gunnery engineer up to his armpits in international intrigue, adapted the screenplay from the novel by Eric Ambler. Targeted for extermination by the Gestapo, Cotten secretly books passage on a steamer bound from Turkey to Batumi. His fellow passengers include dancer Dolores Del Rio and her gigolo partner Jack Durant; talkative Frenchwoman Agnes Moorehead and her browbeaten husband Frank Readick; German archaeologist Eustace Wyatt; and a secretive, obese, thick-spectacled gent, played by Orson Welles' business partner Jack Moss. From the outset, it is no secret that Moss is a Nazi assassin. The question: who are his contacts, and how long will it be before Cotten is forced into a showdown? The very complex storyline was made even more so by RKO's decision to pare the film down to 69 minutes; several resultant plot gaps had to be bridged by an ongoing offscreen narration, presented in the form of a letter written by Cotten to his worried wife Ruth Warrick. As one can see, virtually the entire roster of Welles' Mercury Theatre troupe is involved in Journey into Fear. Welles himself plays colorful Turkish police officer Colonel Haki, while Everett Sloane, Hans Conried and Edgar Barrier essay significant smaller roles. Director Norman Foster so slavishly imitates the patented Wellesian visual style (following Welles' pre-production "storyboards" dictating choice of camera angle, lighting etc.) that many historians have assumed that Welles himself directed the picture. Remade for Canadian TV in 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Albert S. D'Agostino - Art Director, Mark-Lee Kirk - Art Director, Edward Stevenson - Costume Designer, Dewey Starkey - First Assistant Director, Norman Foster - Director, Mark Robson - Editor, Roy Webb - Composer (Music Score), Constantin Bakaleinikoff - Musical Direction/Supervision, Bert Kalmar - Songwriter, Harry Ruby - Songwriter, Karl Struss - Cinematographer, Orson Welles - Producer, Ross Dowd - Set Designer, Darrell Silvera - Set Designer, Vernon Walker - Special Effects, James G. Stewart - Sound/Sound Designer, Richard VanHessen - Sound/Sound Designer, Joseph Cotten - Screenwriter, Orson Welles - Screenwriter, Eric Ambler - Book Author
Journey into Fear is an American spy film based on the Eric Amblernovel of the same name. The 1943 film broadly follows the plot of the book, but the protagonist was changed to an American engineer.
In addition to acting in and producing the film, Orson Welles was to direct, but had to leave that aspect to Norman Foster due to other commitments. Many of Welles' Mercury Theatre associates were cast, including Joseph Cotten, who played the lead role and also co-wrote the screenplay.
In 2005, an alternate cut was shown at a Welles film retrospective at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland. It was the original European release print, lacking the narration and ending of the U.S. version but including about six minutes of footage deleted by RKO.
Naive American engineer Howard Graham (Joseph Cotton) is taken by a fellow employee to an Istanbul nightclub, where he becomes attracted to dancer Josette Martel (Dolores del Río). An attempt to murder him results in the death of an unfortunate magician instead. When Colonel Haki (Orson Welles) of the Turkish police investigates, he discovers that Graham is vital to the upgrading of the Turkish navy and that the Nazis have assigned Peter Banat (Welles' partner Jack Moss) to dispose of him.
Haki arranges a supposedly secret passage for Graham on a tramp steamer. Among his fellow passengers are Josette and her partner Gogo Martel (Jack Durant)...and Banat. Unable to convince the captain to turn around, Graham is trapped aboard the ship, not knowing whom he can trust.
At the end of the journey, Banat and his confederates take Graham away in a car. Fortunately, a flat tire forces a stop in a crowded street, and Graham is able to escape. He makes his way to the hotel where his wife Stephanie (Ruth Warrick) is staying, only to find his enemies also waiting there. Graham escapes once more, aided by the unexpected arrival of Martel (looking to extract money from him in return for Josette's favors). A chase ensues. Colonel Haki makes a timely appearance and engages in a gunfight with Banat. After Haki is wounded, Graham goes out on the ledge of the building after Banat during a rainstorm. When his ammunition runs out, Banat tries to knock Graham off the ledge and falls to his death.
The film was directed by Norman Foster, but many have speculated that there was directorial input by Orson Welles. Welles told Peter Bogdanovich that they were in such a rush to complete his scenes before Welles departed for Brazil to film It's All True that the person directing was whoever was closest to the camera, but Welles also stated in the very same book that he did not direct any part of the film and his friend Foster was the director.
Welles did produce and design the picture and wrote the script with Joseph Cotten. Welles' main contribution as producer was the beginning pre-credit sequence showing the assassin listening to an old phonograph, which then starts to skip. The camera "floats" up to his apartment room from outside, much in the style of certain crane shots in Citizen Kane. In the book This is Orson Welles, Welles states that he thought he was the first to come up with a scene before the credits; he later learned that there were a couple of movies that did this in the late thirties.
