Journey Into Fear
RKO Radio Pictures (1943) Dir. Norman Foster
Blu-ray: Warner Archive $21.99
There’s so very much to like about Journey Into Fear, but as with so many of Orson Welles’ productions, it’s tantalizingly not-quite-there, in this case perhaps not so much the usual guilty party – studio interference – as a lack of interest by Orson himself. Joseph Cotton brought the Eric Ambler story to Mercury Productions as a possible wartime thriller and certainly it had possibilities, but at only 7 reels the result is definitely a B-movie and far from the ceiling set by Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.
American ballistics expert and armament dealer Joseph Cotten is helping rearm the Turkish Navy during the war; the Nazis don’t want that deal completed, and after a failed attempt on Cotten’s life (they kill Hans Conreid by accident!) a Turkish secret police officer (Welles) finds an alternate route aboard a cattle boat that is allegedly safer, although there’s all SORTS of seamy characters aboard, including our Conreid killer, looking for a second shot. Cotten makes it to Batumi, north of the Turkish frontier, where the assassin strikes again, leading to a white-knuckle stalking along a rain-slicked hotel roof ledge.
We worked hard on that previous paragraph to give it all more coherence than the film actually has; you’d think the movie was cut by about an hour, it’s so disjointed, but actually while Welles was in South America working on It’s All True RKO only cut about a reel and added (terrible and corny) narration and a stupid ending.
The backstory on this would be fascinating; it’s a shame there’s no expert commentary on the Blu-ray. Welles and Cotten co-wrote the script (rewriting a Ben Hecht adaptation of the Ambler book) and Welles insisted on putting half of his office (his chauffer, secretary, and others) to work as extras and cast members. Banat, the killer, is played by Jack Moss – Welles’ business manager, allegedly because Welles thought he “looked like a killer” (and so he does). Welles’ girlfriend at the time, Delores Del Rio, is our leading lady as the femme fatale, and she’s awful in the movie, leaving Ruth Warrick (who plays Mrs. Cotten) standing around looking annoyed that she didn’t get to play the glamourous part. Agnes Moorehead as a fellow traveler (you should forgive the expression) to Russia is wasted, and this being a Welles picture, of course Everett Sloane is here, too.
The film is saved and worth seeing thanks to cinematography by the great Karl Struss and by that remarkable chase scene on the ledge that ends the picture; it’s a heart-stopper. The Warner Archive Blu-ray is up to their usual high standards, with some very fun bonus material: three consecutive episodes of the Mercury Theatre of the Air radio broadcasts from the summer of 1938: Dracula, Treasure Island, and A Tale of Two Cities.
Journey Into Fear may not be a completely successful film, but it's a fascinating one and well worth seeing, particularly in this beautiful new edition.
