Main Cast: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Dan Duryea, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram
Release Year: 1944
Country: US
Run Time: 85 minutes
Plot
An innocent man is drawn into a web of espionage when he unwittingly comes into possession of a crucial piece of microfilm in this shadowy, ominous film noir. Fritz Lang's adaptation of Graham Greene's novel is filled with unusual touches, beginning with the fact that protagonist Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) has just been released from a mental asylum. To celebrate his return to the real world, he visits a local carnival, only to accidentally receive a "prize" meant for a Nazi agent. When he discovers the error, he turns for help to a detective, whose investigations only make the matter more complicated. Neale soon winds up on the run from both the Nazis and the police, who mistakenly believe him guilty of murder. Lang's famous expressionistic style is somewhat muted here, but Henry Sharp's crisp black-and-white cinematography sets a suitably unsettling mood, and the twists and double-crosses of Greene's story unfold at an appropriately quick pace. While it does not reach the same level of timeless classic as Carol Reed's adaptation of Greene's The Third Man four years later, Ministry of Fear stands as a well-made, thoroughly gripping and intelligent example of film noir. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Review
This plot-heavy espionage thriller is stuffed with eccentric touches, from its premise -- a recently released mental patient accidentally wins a cake with a roll of secret Nazi microfilm baked into it -- to its bravura showdown conclusion. After stumbling onto the mysterious baked good, Ray Milland's Stephen Neale finds himself up against a sinister spy ring more than willing to play on his mental instability. They even hold a bogus séance designed to provoke his guilt at the death of his wife, the event that sent him into the mental hospital in the first place. If the plot becomes muddled at times, it still retains director Fritz Lang's always-compelling atmosphere of doom, and there's one stunning sequence that makes it all worthwhile. A pitch black room is suddenly pierced with the sound of gunfire, which lets in a single pinpoint of light. Stephen opens the door on a freshly killed corpse. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen paid tribute to this jaw-dropping scene in their neo-noir Blood Simple. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide
Ministry of Fear is a 1944film noir directed by Fritz Lang based on the novel The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene. The film tells the story of a man just released from a mental asylum who finds himself caught up in an international spy ring in London during the Blitz. After guessing the weight of a cake at a fair, he is pursued by foreign agents and incriminated for murder. The original music for the film was composed by Miklós Rózsa and Victor Young.
Judd Blaise, writing for Allmovie, states "While it does not reach the same level of timeless classic as Carol Reed's adaptation of Greene's The Third Man four years later, Ministry of Fear stands as a well-made, thoroughly gripping and intelligent example of film noir."[1]
