Journey Into Fear (1942)

An American ballistics expert in Turkey finds himself targeted by Nazi agents. Safe passage home by ship is arranged for him, but he soon discovers that his pursuers are also on board.

Directors:

Norman Foster, Orson Welles (uncredited)

Writers:

Joseph Cotten (screenplay), Eric Ambler (novel)

Stars:

Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Rio

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Joseph Cotten	...	Howard Graham
Dolores del Rio	...	Josette Martel (as Dolores Del Rio)
Ruth Warrick	...	Mrs. Stephanie Graham
Agnes Moorehead	...	Mrs. Mathews
Jack Durant	...	Gogo Martel
Everett Sloane	...	Kopeikin
Eustace Wyatt	...	Prof. Haller / Muller
Frank Readick	...	Matthews
Edgar Barrier	...	Kuvetli
Jack Moss	...	Peter Banat
Stefan Schnabel	...	Translator for Ship's Captain
Hans Conried	...	Swami Magician
Robert Meltzer	...	Ship Baggageman
Richard Bennett	...	Ship's Captain
Orson Welles	...	Colonel Haki

Storyline

A Navy engineer, returning to the U.S. with his wife from a conference, finds himself pursued by Nazi agents, who are out to kill him. Without a word to his wife, he flees the hotel the couple is staying in and boards a ship, only to find, after the ship sails, that the agents have followed him.

---

Plot Keywords:

wellesian | secret agent | nazi spy | held at gunpoint | espionage | 

---

Taglines:

Welles and Del Rio together! as Terror Man vs. Leopard Woman--for possession of a mysterious stranger in the powder-keg Middle East...a man with a military secret worth more than his love and his life!...It's menace melodrama thrilled with mighty mystery and suspense...SEE IT!

---

Genres:

Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller

---

Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Turkish French German

Release Date:

12 February 1943 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Jornada do Medo

Company Credits

Production Co:

RKO Radio Pictures, Mercury Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

68 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

At one point, Michèle Morgan was to star and Robert Stevenson to direct.

---

Goofs

At c.33 minutes we see the ship's first aid cabinet on the wall of the captain's berth marked with a Red Cross symbol. In a Turkish ship the marking would be a Red Crescent (or, commonly, a Red Cross and a Red Crescent side by side) but never solely a Red Cross motif.

---

Quotes

Prof. Haller: Won't you join me, Mr. Graham? I'm just getting some fresh air.
Howard Graham: Oh.
Prof. Haller: [standing at the ship's railing, looking into the distance] To see the land from a ship, or to see a ship from the land, I used to like both. Now I dislike both. When a man reaches my age, he grows, I think, to resent subconsciously the movement of everything except the respiratory muscles which keep him alive. Movement is change. And to an old man, change means death.

---

Connections

Version of Journey Into Fear (1975)

---

Soundtracks

C'est mon coeur
(uncredited)
Written by Steven Morgan

User Reviews

Of such strokes is suspense made…

The operatic approach of adding a musical dimension to menace with a killer-theme on the soundtrack has been greatly used in Orson Welles' glorious suspense film, "Journey Into Fear," where the little killer obsessively played a scratchy old 78 rpm disc of someone singing "Chagrin d'Amour."

The assassin was short and fat; his belly large, his chin and neck flabby... I do not recall him having a line of dialog to speak… But the whole film was spread with heightened menace when he sat, his little round eyes blank behind his little round pebble lenses, listening compulsively to the atrociously scratchy record, confusing the words of the song at the wrong speed, the needle jumping from groove to groove; his nerve-ends, unlike ours, immune to the discordance…

This was a spy thriller set in the wartime Near East, about an innocent American engineer (Joseph Cotten), pursued by Nazi agents and blundering from danger to danger without seeming to know too much of what it was all about…It was essentially a hunter-and-hunted story, with settings that were often seedy but always exotic…

The opening was in Istanbul, the climax in Batum, and all the terrors between were forced claustrophobically between the low ceilings and narrow partitions of a neglected little steamer plowing the Black Sea…

"Journey Into Fear" lives for its portrait gallery, its atmosphere, and for Welles' touches and excesses…