Ministry of Fear

The United Kingdom has long been the home of the spy thriller. While writers in the US like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were turning out hard-boiled crime fiction, Britain had people like John Buchan and Grahame Greene writing adventuresome tales of espionage and political intrigue. In cinema too, the best director of spy thrillers was undoubtedly Englishman Alfred Hitchcock, and many of his early British films were in the genre. Ministry of Fear however was an American production, made by Paramount studios, and yet it is set in Britain and is adapted from a Grahame Greene novel.

Despite this complete independence from the famous British thrillers of the 30s (which weren't just Hitchcock's by the way, Michael Powell did a few, as did Anthony Asquith), you can see the similarities in theme and plot. As in The 39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much and so forth, the hero is an ordinary citizen who is drawn into events by chance. He finds himself in a nightmare situation where anyone could be an enemy, and he even finds it impossible to prove his own innocence to the authorities. I stress all this to prove the point that these devices were not invented by Hitchcock, even if he popularised them and associated them with his name – they were established features of the spy novel.

Being a US production, and seemingly one unable to take advantage of the growing crop of Brit actors in Hollywood, the primary roles in Ministry of Fear go to Americans. Ray Milland was just starting to break through into important dramatic roles, and although this is far from as prestigious as the ones he would soon be getting, it does show off his talent for moulding a new persona. He does a passable British accent, in the days before getting these things right was considered important (cf. Errol Flynn pretending to be a yankee), and gives a realistic look of disorientation to the character which fits in nicely with his innocent bystander status. The only other standout from the cast is Dan Duryea who despite only appearing in a handful of scenes makes a grand impact. Duryea didn't really play authentic types, but that wasn't the point. He was the archetypal creepy villain, and his characters don't have to be particularly active because he was great at constantly projecting the idea that he might be about to do something unpleasant. Take that scene at the tailor's shop, where he dials the number with a pair of scissors – that's a typical and very effective bit of Duryea business.

And finally we come to the director, one Fritz Lang. Lang responds fantastically to the material, and emphasises most of all the sense of entrapment in a nightmarish situation. Take the pivotal cake-weigh scene – who but Lang could make a village fete look so eerie? The child's ball bouncing towards Milland as he enters, the absence of bustle or enjoyment, the silence as Duryea arrives, and the absolute, claustrophobic darkness. It's not just gloomy – it has the surrealism of a dream, and really does feel like some symbolic strand of a nightmare. Also characteristic of Lang is the way he uses odd angles and compositions, not so much for expressionistic value but to satisfy his own aesthetic taste, full of diagonals and art deco starkness. It gives us this sense of displacement as familiar settings and objects become geometric patterns. Hollywood didn't have a lot of cash to spare during the war (for a good example of this check out how minimalist Paramount's "big" Technicolor "epic" of the war years, For Whom the Bell Tolls, is), and oddly enough this fact adds to the effect in Ministry of Fear, with stripped down sets, low-level lighting and a lack of extras making conjuring up the atmosphere of a ghost-town.

And this really is what makes Ministry of Fear that little bit different. Whereas the Hitchcock-directed spy thrillers had a kind of playfulness to them, and used that to complement the sense of excitement which the plots necessarily generated from them, Lang's take on the genre really embodies that feeling of real life becoming a nightmare, a tone which Hitch never really went all-out on. As such, Ministry of Fear works on us like a horror movie (and interestingly the theatrical trailer tried to package it as one) thrilling us by immersing us in its chilling world.

Ministry of Fear is fun. It's lighter and less moody than one would expect from the premise of a man just out of a mental hospital being pursued by sinister forces, or from the knowledge that it was directed by Fritz Lang and based on a novel by Graham Greene. It certainly is not film noir, though Universal marketed the VHS release under that rubric.

In both spirit and look, Ministry of Fear resembles the war-aware Sherlock Holmes series that Universal was putting out at the time. If you, like me, have a taste for that bracing brew of riddles, perils, improbabilities, and good manners, you should enjoy this. You can even look forward to seeing some familiar faces from the casts of the Holmes films.

One day after watching Ministry of Fear for the first time, I can't remember a single exterior shot that seems to have been taken outdoors. There may be some, but the impression that remains is that the film was shot entirely under shelter, just in case the Nazis brought the Blitz to California. This dim, artificial "interior world" setting works in a casual way to achieve a dream-like quality. However, we never get the deliberately nightmarish artistic effects that made Lang's reputation. Promising scenes in a séance parlor or a fortune-teller's tent are developed only enough for narrative purposes, not for atmospheric ones. The resulting narrative is always engaging, but it never becomes involving. It doesn't systematically draw us into a labyrinth of intrigue like Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent or Norman Foster's Journey into Fear, but entertains us with a string of incidents. It's as if Lang were skipping stones on a pond for our amusement instead of daring us to go in for a midnight swim.

That all sounds negative, but it simply means that Ministry of Fear succeeds in its mission: to show us a good time if we're prepared to have one. The tone is set by the casting of Ray Milland in the lead. Milland is a personal favorite among film protagonists, an everyman who enables everyboys to believe (however vainly) that they can grow up to be big, handsome, unmistakably well-bred, and equal to any challenge without selling their boyish, fun-loving souls. Milland had a maturely magisterial look about the eyes even in his youth; and yet even in later years, when he was the archetype of the self-possessed patrician, he seemed to delight in rolling those eyes or smiling with mischievous glee. His kind of everyman is an inverted, self-made kind. He might be, say, a younger son of a baronet: fully equipped with social graces and education, but unencumbered with responsibilities, appearances, or an embarrassing amount of money. We often find him dislocated from the well-ordered world that he was apparently born to, but destined to settle back into it when his high spirits have carried him through some danger. However saturnine he may look in a publicity still, he'll probably take us on a lark when the projector starts whirring. And so he does in Ministry of Fear.

The plot? Well, it's about a man just out of a mental hospital being pursued by sinister forces. He also pursues them in return. Along the way, he meets a young woman played by Marjorie Reynolds. When she starts to speak, it may seem for a moment that she's doing an awful British accent, but it turns out to be a tolerable German one. She plays a refugee from Austria who is running a charitable organization with her brother. What becomes of her, the brother, the private detective who serves as the hero's funny sidekick, or villain Dan Duryea (who supplies the awful British accent), must remain shrouded in deepest mystery until you see the film. When you do, please remember that Fritz Lang had to eat like everybody else, and just sit back while he entertains you.

With an interesting story and good atmospheric settings, "Ministry of Fear" is a good film noir that most fans of the genre should find worth watching. Ray Milland is very good as a man battling a recent personal tragedy, who must then also try to sort out a series of mysterious and hazardous events in which he has suddenly become involved.

There are a lot of characters, and the story gets a bit complicated at times, making use of the W.W.II setting while introducing some quirky elements which generally come across pretty well. There are also a couple of good surprises, and for most of the way you have to guess along with Milland's character as to what will happen next. As with most such films, you must occasionally suspend disbelief, but that does not really detract from the atmosphere and tension.

If you enjoy film noir and/or thrillers, give this one a try. It's not one of the best of its genre, but it moves quickly and works well, at least as light entertainment.

In Lembridge, during World War II, the inmate Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) has just been released from the Lembridge Asylum after two years of compulsory confinement. While waiting for the train to London, Stephen visits a charity fair promoted by The Mothers of Free Nations and the clairvoyant Mrs. Bellane gives a tip to him and he receives a cake as a gift.

In the train, Stephen shares his cabin with a blind man. Out of the blue, the man steals the cake and run through the field with Stephen chasing him. However, he hides in a house that is bombed by the airplanes and dies.

In London, Stephen investigates The Mothers of Free Nations organization and he meets the siblings Carla Hilfe (Marjorie Reynolds) and Willi Hilfe (Carl Esmond) and Stephen goes with Willi to the house of Mrs. Bellane (Hillary Brooke), who is a different woman from the fair. She invites them to participate of a séance and a man is murdered. Stephen is accused and escapes, and Carla finds a hideout to him. Sooner Stephen finds that he is a pawn in a Nazi spy ring and he does not know who is trustworthy.

"Ministry of Fear" is film-noir of espionage by Fritz Lang with a man getting involved in a spy ring in London during World War II. The plot is only reasonable and the motivation for Stephen Neale to get further and further in his investigation is not clear since he had been advised to avoid problems with the police. Anyway the film is entertaining and for fans of Fritz Lang, it is worthwhile watching it. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Quando Desceram as Trevas" ("When the Darkness Has Fallen Down")

If you like Hitchcock's "39 Steps" or "The Man Who Knew Too Much", you're likely to enjoy this one, too. It's weakness, in comparison to "39 Steps" lies in a frustratingly shallow treatment of the characters. Development of the relationship between the protagonist Neale and the very photogenic Fraeulein Hilfe is disappointingly sketchy - and their unwavering trust in each other - and love - essentially instantaneous, not gradually won through tension, doubt and adversity. And our doubts concerning Neale's time in prison for murder are defused all too quickly, assuring us he's no "Stagefright" personality. I can't help thinking Lang attempted to emulate "39 Steps". The result's a fun film, with wonderful close-ups of a very young Millan and his girl, but of "thinner fabric". As in "39" or "North by Northwest", the plot doesn't resist much scrutiny - the bad guys' judgment pretty lame. The fun lies in character eccentricities, great photography, the creation of an artificial universe, etc. Personally, I find "Man Who Knew Too Much" too long, impossible to sit through a second time, excessive in several ways - overacted, over-dramatized; this film, like "39" or "North by Northwest", I have no problem watching again and again.