Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
ThedevilChoose
When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.
Ortiz
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Edgar Allan Pooh
. . . "Ian F." was interviewed "off-the-record" by that ubiquitous Hollywood gadfly of the late 1900s, "Peter Fogbottom," about his second most famous creation--"James Bond"--Mr. F. confessed that "Secret Agent 007" was based upon JOURNEY INTO FEAR's U.S. traveling salesman character "Howard Graham" more than anything else. As Ian told Pete, "Howie isn't afraid to take on a quartet of heavily-armed Nazi thugs when he himself is equipped merely with an umbrella," referring to the JOURNEY INTO FEAR bit just BEFORE Mr. Graham drives the Gestapo staff car through a store front. "Seeing Howie charging the Third Reich assassin on a high-rise window ledge through a drenching rain bearing nothing more than a pocket comb got me to thinking," continued novelist Ian. "If an American could be so brave and foolhardy, surely an Englishman enjoying a large support bureaucracy backing him up with high tech gadgets might be able to pull off some of Graham's daring do stunts, if they were sufficiently down-sized." Of course, as they say, "the rest is hearsay."
alexanderdavies-99382
"Journey into Fear" is only a minor film from the likes of Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton. The idea is pretty good but the final results are disappointing. I expected something of interest to have occurred by about the opening 10 minutes. In my opinion, this didn't happen and I had to settle for what is just a routine film. The running time is only that of about 68 minutes but it seemed a lot longer somehow. The pace is rather leaden and the continuity confusing. Most of the film takes place on the sets that represent the large boat where leading man Joseph Cotton finds himself and wondering about the dangers he faces. Cotton gives a good performance and manages to overcome the shortcomings of "Journey into Fear" to a certain extent. Orson Welles makes a brief appearance as some foreign general but should have been in the film more. There are some moments of tension, it is true. If only Welles had been directing this, then the film would have been better.
Claudio Carvalho
The American ballistic expert and naval engineer Howard Graham (Joseph Cotton) is traveling with his wife Mrs. Stephanie Graham (Ruth Warrick) to Batumi by train. They stop in Istanbul to meet Kopeikin (Everett Sloane), who is the armaments representative of Graham's company, and he takes Graham to a nightclub to discuss business. Kopeikin introduces the dancer Josette Martel (Dolores Del Rio) to him and during the show, the magician invites Graham to go to the stage. The killer Banat (Jack Moss) tries to kill Graham, but hits the magician instead. Graham is forced to go to the Turkish police and Colonel Haki (Orson Welles) from the secret service shows him photograph of Banat, who has been hired by the Nazi Muller (Eustace Wyatt) to kill him. Haki asks Graham to travel to Batumi by steamship since it would be a safer trip. However, Graham stumbles over Banat and Muller, in the beginning of his journey into fear."Journey into Fear" is a deceptive classic with an entertaining spy story. With the names of Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton and Dolores Del Rio, any viewer would expect a great classic but the result is a disappointing plot. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Jornada do Pavor" ("Journey into Fear")
seymourblack-1
"Journey Into Fear" is an intriguing wartime thriller which features a frightened protagonist, a Nazi assassin, exotic locations and a variety of rather eccentric and sometimes threatening characters. The story which is based on Eric Ambler's espionage novel of the same name is quite involved and the action takes place in an environment which is often tense and menacing.Howard Graham (Joseph Cotten) is an American armaments expert who visits Istanbul with his wife during World War 11 and is met almost immediately by a man called Kopeikin (Everett Sloan) who is his company's local representative. Kopeikin is very pushy and quickly persuades Graham to go with him to a local nightclub where a magician is shot and killed in circumstances which convince Graham that he was the intended target.The nightclub incident is investigated by Colonel Haki (Orson Welles) who's the Head of the Secret Police. Haki is aware that Graham's expertise is vital to the planned re-armament of the Turkish navy and that if anything happened to him, the project would suffer a very damaging setback. Haki tells Graham that the attempt on his life had been made by an assassin called Peter Banat (Jack Moss) who'd been hired by a Nazi agent and then, for his own safety, promptly arranges for him to travel on a cargo boat to Batumi.During the journey Graham grows more anxious as he finds himself surrounded by a strange group of passengers which includes Peter Banat and when he tells the ship's captain that he's seen an assassin on board, the disbelieving captain openly ridicules him for being paranoid. At the end of his journey, Graham is ushered into a waiting car by Banat but when the car has to be stopped to change a flat tyre, Graham makes his escape. A frantic chase follows before the story reaches its extremely tense and exciting climax.Expressionistic lighting and some eccentric camera angles are used to good effect to create the disturbing atmosphere which seems to permeate the whole movie and the impressive opening sequence and a shoot-out which takes place on a hotel ledge are both exceptionally well executed. Norman Foster is credited as being the film's director but over the years there's also been a great deal of speculation concerning the extent to which Orson Welles was involved. What is indisputable, however, is that "Journey Into Fear" certainly has a great many of the characteristics which audiences readily recognise as being Wellsian.It's well documented that Welles was committed to completing this movie for contractual reasons and no doubt, this fact and the studio's subsequent heavy editing resulted in an end product which has a real throwaway quality about it. There's so much that's so good in "Journey Into Fear" that it inevitably leaves the feeling that, with greater commitment, it could have been even better.
