Ministry of Fear

source: Ministry of Fear

Although the script may have been a little uneven (and I have no idea how it relates to the book by Graham Greene), but for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning this was some good noir fun. Hints of Hitchcock lent a creepiness to the atmosphere. Things were also somewhat unpredictable, which is important for any mystery. Nicely done.

"Ministry Of Fear" is set in England during World War 11 and is an exciting spy thriller with a complicated plot, plenty of suspense and action that unfolds at a lively pace. It was adapted for the screen by Seton I Miller from a Grahame Greene novel and was also directed impressively by Fritz Lang. Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) isn't a typical "spy thriller hero" as he's simply a man who was unjustly incarcerated in a mental asylum for a couple of years following the death of his terminally ill wife. He was believed to have assisted her in committing suicide but in reality, she had taken her own life. When he gets released from the asylum, fate continues to be unkind to him as he gets mistaken for a Nazi spy, has his life put in danger on two occasions and also gets accused of another murder which he also didn't commit!! When Neale leaves the asylum and buys a ticket for London, he has some time to spare before his train is due to depart and so visits a charity fête which is being held close to the station. After winning a cake in a "guess the weight" competition, he's joined on the train by a man who appears to be blind and when their journey is interrupted by an air raid, Neale's travelling companion attacks him and makes off with the cake. Neale then chases him over some moorland and is surprised when the man starts shooting at him. The shooting only stops after the man is killed when the building in which he hides is bombed. Neale later decides to hire a private detective called George Rennit (Erskine Sanford) to investigate the charity (The Mothers Of Free Nations) which had organised the fête and this in turn leads to him meeting Willi Hilfe (Carl Esmond) and his sister Carla (Marjorie Reynolds) who run the organisation. They are Austrians and both subsequently help him after he attends a séance where a man called Cost (Dan Duryea) is shot dead and Neale is accused of his murder. Neale and Carla fall in love and she helps him to investigate whether "The Mothers Of Free Nations" has in fact been infiltrated and used as a cover for a group of Nazi spies. The couple escape an attempt on their lives after a suitcase that they'd been asked to deliver explodes and Neale eventually discovers that the cake he'd won had contained some microfilm which was intended for delivery to the spy ring. A number of further surprising developments follow before Neale's investigations are successfully completed. "Ministry Of Fear" contains a number of film noir motifs such as clocks, mirrors and expressionist photography but another significant one is the uncertain and changing identities of some of its characters. There are two women (a fortune teller and a medium at a séance) who both claim to be Mrs Bellane and Dan Duryea's character operates under two different names (Cost & Travers) as does Carl Esmond's (Hilfe & Macklin). It's not only the identities of people that can't be trusted in this movie as a number of the characters are also not what they appear to be and the fortune teller and the medium are both fakes. Deception on this kind of scale creates a sinister atmosphere within which it becomes impossible to trust anyone and Neale even has reason to doubt where Carla's loyalties lie. In a situation where deceit is everywhere and no-one can be trusted, Neale's paranoia understandably grows and is soon accompanied by feelings of alienation as he also can't get the police to believe him because his previous conviction and the time he spent in the asylum undermine the credibility of everything he says. "Ministry Of Fear" really is very entertaining on a number of levels and Ray Milland is particularly good as an ordinary man who has to cope with all the danger, desperation and confusion that he experiences during this high speed adventure.

I think the reason that everyone is so thrilled that the cake is made with real eggs, is that in England under war time food rationing, only powdered eggs were available, which apparently were horrible, and so the cause for so much excitement having something made with the real thing. The fact that so much of it appears to have survived a direct hit from the bombing raid might be testament to it's itegrity. Something else that I find curious is that the fair that Milland attends on his release appears to be held in the dead of night. Apart from that, a mightily stellar film. It's great to see so many faces from the Sherlock Holmes series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I've given it a ten.

Very disappointed at this adaptation of a Graham Greene book. Ray Milland looked nothing like someone just emerged from an Mental Asylum and I'm not sure that word was used by the 1940's, "mental hospital" would be more likely. None of the sets looked real, just like a badly lit studio set. Why was the Fair at night-time? None of the ladies looked British, they sounded like Americans trying to put on a British accent. Also, the street name was attached to the lamp-post, but in the UK street names are in black and white and attached to the wall. It was as if someone had not researched it well enough. After the excellent train scene with the blind man, I lost interest in the plot. Shame, as I love film noir and especially Fritz Lang.

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")

This is a strange Lang film. It is a pure programmer, somewhat along the lines of Hitchcock, but because Lang did not get much of his way with it, the reins largely being in the hands of the producer/writer Seton Miller, well....thereby hangs the warping something he had wanted to do for a long time, and would have done had not the film rights been bought up long before. So we will never see anything as of a piece say as Big Heat, yet some of the set pieces are as good as anything Lang ever did. Getting rid of the detritus first, much of the time the film is absolutely leaden. However there are a few good moments at the carnival where Milland gets his cake, and then on the train with the cake...and from here on we are going into some spoilers, so don't read any further if you have not seen the film. After the train is bombed, there is a hokey but absolutely pure Lang scene during the seance with Hillary Brooke. Hitchcock would probably have handled it differently and it would have been interesting to see how it would have differed from Lang. Lang's noir came from a deeper, purer UFA strain under which Hitch studied: while this not being the place to go into Hitch's style, Lang's approach was always much more primitive: his blacks were the blackest of the bunch, his terror was always meaner if not deeper than Hitch's largely because Lang really did escape from some of the meanest and baddest of Europe, the Nazis, and in film after film, the terrors he summons often have all the suddeness and starkness of a knock on the door at midnight...out of nowhere. Lang's blacks were always a pool from thugs and monsters to emerge with a gun. His blacks were the purest of anybody who ever got behind a camera, and his Nazis still the most terrifying of them all. That said, after the seance, and the shooting there, his escape and running from the police is pretty idiotic, probably because of the poor script of Seton Miller. Only until the bombing of the room, and Millands waking up does the film take on real life again. The person playing the cop is something else, however. Lang has the man give one of the most unusual takes on a cop in the history of cinema. The hunting for the cake in the ruins takes place on a set but does not suffer at all, much as they do in a Hitchcock with no damage. Much of the scene is also very hokey but is quite good. Then after the cake is found, the rest of the film is superb. Once they trace the microfilm to the tailor shop, wow, great stuff. The rain was never handled better, and the scene at the tailor is a good as anything Lang ever did. And even the final shootout is quite good. Only the last frames of the end betrays whom ultimately was controlling the film: Seton Miller tacks on a hack absolutely stupid ending that Lang must have felt like crawling into five bottles of Johnny Walkers. It's embarrassing. Yet Dan Duryea and Ray Milland and the man playing the Scotland Yard cop are about as good as anything that came out of Hollywood that year. Strange that a movie only rating an overall 3 or 4 could have a few not only good but really great, almost seminal noir scenes. My own feeling is that Lang's best film is Manhunt. It is tight and watchable all the way through from first to last. But there are a few moments in Ministry up to the very best of that. Too few, unfortunately, but even so, Lang at his best, even minimally was always better than the vast mediocrities of most of the forties and fifties. Hang around for the few great moments of this baby and you won't ask for your money back.

Ray Milland is brilliant in this story of a man whose troubles just begin when he is released from an asylum. The suspense is so thick it can be cut with a knife and the supporting cast is excellent in this innocent-man-caught-up-in-espionage classic. The photographic shadings are also just right. And remember, the cake is made with real eggs.

I don't remember reading so much trash before, the past reviews seem to have missed the film. Were they watching? They tell you the plot, as a proof that they saw it. Why do people write here? I hope there is no censure in here, that would be just worst. But to criticize and pose as experts, judging an artist with your little thumb, that's pathetic. I've written some humble reviews as to advice on some movies, but burning a movie by such a great filmmaker that is Lang, that's ignorance. I don't know if you liked him for M or Metropolis, that's just the surface, he works following production and commercial rules but he never loses his voice, he is speaking from the shadows, his images show the perfect conflict between light and darkness, in constant reassembling. The world of lies, the fear, the ignorance and the malice are all there, in life and in his movies. I hope there are people out there who care for this film. Raul Quintanilla Alvarado.

Overall, this movie was a disappointment. I'm a huge film noir fan but the plot wasn't enjoyable or interesting enough to make up for its complexity. I found myself not caring as things were revealed. None of the characters made an impression on me. There were a few good visual tricks (the question-mark shadow in a doorway, bullets through a doorway in a dark room) but nevertheless a weak effort by Lang. Distinct feeling of having wasted my time.