Journey Into Fear (1943)

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.

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Plot Keywords:

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

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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!

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Genres:

Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Turkish French German

Release Date:

12 February 1943 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Jornada do Medo

Filming Locations:

RKO Studios - 780 N. Gower Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

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

When production on Journey Into Fear began, co-stars Orson Welles and Dolores del Rio had been having an affair for several years. Del Rio ended the relationship shortly after the film's release.

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Goofs

During the chase outside the hotel in the rain, Banat's pistol, a P-08 "Luger" runs out of ammunition, but the action closes normally after he fires the last shot. This particular pistol was designed so that the action stays open after the last round is fired, giving a clear indication to the user that the gun is empty.

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Quotes

Kopeikin: [seeing Graham off at the dock] Oh, by the way, have you a gun in your luggage?
Howard Graham: I haven't got any luggage!
Kopeikin: [pulls a loaded revolver from his coat] Then, uh, you better take this. I picked it up on my way to see your wife. It is completely loaded.
Howard Graham: What did she say?
Kopeikin: [hands the gun to Graham] Here.
Howard Graham: Well, I don't need this!
Kopeikin: Put it in your pocket. It will make you feel nicer to have it.
Howard Graham: I never fired one of these things, you know?
Kopeikin: [laughs] That's a good one, Howard. You are a ballistics expert, and you ...
[...]

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Alternate Versions

In 2005 an alternate cut was shown at the Welles film retrospective in Locarno, Switzerland. It was the original European release print, lacking the narration and ending of the US version but including about six minutes of footage later deleted by RKO.

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Connections

Referenced in Love Is a Roller Coaster: Woman on the Run Revisited (2016)

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Soundtracks

I'd Know You Anywhere
(uncredited)
Music by Jimmy McHugh
Lyrics by Johnny Mercer

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…