Dark Journey (1937)

During World War I, a German spy and a British spy meet and fall in love.

Director:

Victor Saville

Writers:

Lajos Biró (screenplay), Arthur Wimperis (scenario and dialogue)

Stars:

Conrad Veidt, Vivien Leigh, Joan Gardner

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Conrad Veidt	...	Baron Karl Von Marwitz
Vivien Leigh	...	Madeleine Goddard
Joan Gardner	...	Lupita
Anthony Bushell	...	Bob Carter
Ursula Jeans	...	Gertrude
Margery Pickard	...	Colette
Eliot Makeham	...	Anatole Bergen
Austin Trevor	...	Dr. Muller
Sam Livesey	...	Major Schaeffer
Edmund Willard	...	General Berlin of German Intelligence
Charles Carson	...	Head of Fifth Bureau
Philip Ray	...	Faber (as Phil Ray)
Henry Oscar	...	Swedish Magistrate
Laurence Hanray	...	Cottin
Cecil Parker	...	Captain of Q-Boat

Storyline

Madeline Goddard is a smart young woman who owns a fashionable dress shop in neutral Sweden during World War One. Though she is grateful to avoid the fighting, the courageous and stunningly pretty Madeline feels she should be doing more for her native France. She volunteers to work as an intelligence agent, smuggling maps and other documents within the fashionable garments she ships to wealthy customers in London. Madeline's activities are so successful that British intelligence soon comes to rely on her as their main pipeline for information. At about this time, a British official in Sweden asks her to cultivate the friendship of Baron Karl Von Marwitz, a tall, distinguished-looking German officer who is in charge of counter-espionage activities at the German embassy. Unknown to Madeline, the baron has been sent to Sweden for the express purpose of discovering and eliminating the top British spy who has been smuggling out German war plans. When Madeline and Karl meet, each recognizes...

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Plot Keywords:

spy | world war one | double agent | world war two | based on play

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Genres:

Adventure | Romance | Thriller | War

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 July 1937 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Anxious Years

Company Credits

Production Co:

London Film Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

77 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Wide Range Noiseless Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

The story takes place in 1918, but all of Vivien Leigh's fashions and hairstyles, as well as those of the other women in the cast, are strictly up-to-the minute 1937 modes.

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Quotes

Madeleine Goddard: [Locked in her stateroom on board ship] A spy... a life I never wanted. And now it's over. Finished and done. So sleepy...

User Reviews

Haunting Vivien, Murky Film

Vivien Leigh is even better in this film than she was in GONE WITH THE WIND. She has a fragile, hunted beauty which works perfectly for her role as the unwilling spy forced into romantic entanglements and deceptions. The story is murky, but that doesn't really matter. Watch the sequence where Vivien has been marched aboard ship and locked into her stateroom for deportment as an unwanted spy. Using just her eyes and her expression, Vivien does an entire scene of tossing in her sleep, going to the porthole, and lying back down to sleep again, showing every emotion from fear, suspicion, and doubt to acceptance of her own guilt. Then there's an explosion and she sits bolt upright, looking as fragile and unspeakably lovely as a hunted deer. This is a movie where the sheer radiance of the lead actress makes everything else seem dull by comparison.