Journey Into Fear

Plot synopsis:
In an opening scene before the credits an assassin, Banat, is seen preparing a gun while a gramophone skips as it plays. The story that follows is the narrative of a letter from Howard Graham, an American armaments engineer, to his wife Stephanie. While journeying to the Soviet port of Batumi to return to the United States to complete his business with the Turkish Navy, Graham and his wife stop in Istanbul and are met by Kopeikin, a Turkish employee of Graham's company, who under the pretense of discussing business, takes Graham to a nightclub to introduce him to dancer Josette Maretl and her partner Gogo. Banat tries unsuccessfully to kill Graham during a magic act, shooting the magician instead. Graham is brought to the headquarters of the Turkish secret police for questioning, where Colonel Haki blames the assassination attempt on German agents seeking to delay the re-arming of Turkish ships. The colonel shows Graham a photograph of Banat, whom he says was hired by a Nazi agent named Muller. Haki then orders Graham to travel secretly to Batumi aboard a tramp steamer, while Haki personally oversees the safe overland transit of Stephanie.
Graham's fellow passengers include Josette and Gogo; Kuvetli, an ingratiating Turkish tobacco salesman; Professor Haller, an apolitical German archeologist; and the henpecked Matthews and his French wife. Josette sees that Graham is frightened, and not knowing that he is married, tries to become close to him. At an interim port call, Graham is made aware of the arrival of a new passenger by the annoying clamor of a gramophone, while Haller warns him that Kuvetli is not who he claims to be. At dinner Graham recognizes Banat and tries to persuade the ship's captain and purser to put him ashore, but they believe that he is crazy. Graham turns to Josette for help and she has Gogo engage Banat in a poker game while Graham unsuccessfully searches Banat's cabin for the assassin's gun.
When Graham returns to his own cabin, he is met by an armed Haller and deduces that he is actually Muller. Muller offers to spare Graham's life by delaying his return to the States for six weeks by having him taken to a hospital with a case of "typhus." Muller warns him that Kuvetli is a Turkish agent sent by Haki and warns Graham he will be killed if he confides the plan to the Turk. Kuvetli was eavesdropping from the next cabin, however, and informs Graham that Muller's "plan" is just a scheme to get Graham away from the ship before murdering him. Kuvetli instructs Graham to pretend to agree to the plan but before the ship docks in Batumi to hide himself in an empty cabin while the Turkish agent arranges for the arrest of the German agents. When Graham goes to the empty cabin, he finds Kuvetli dead on the floor, murdered by Banat. Graham asks Mathews to deliver a message to the Turkish consul in Batumi to notify Haki. Matthews gives the unarmed Graham a pocket knife. Graham runs into Gogo, who bluntly offers to "give up" Josette for Graham to marry for a cash consideration.
Muller and Banat coerce Graham into a waiting car. When the car has a flat tire, Graham jams Matthews' pocket knife into the horn, and in the ensuing commotion, jumps into the driver's seat, crashes the car into a shop window and escapes. That night, as a storm rages, Graham joins his wife at their hotel, but Muller arrives there first, impersonating a coworker from Graham's company. Banat intimidates Graham from leaving and Muller persuades Stephanie to join Haki downstairs while he "talks business" with Graham. He leaves Graham to be killed by Banat, but Gogo enters the room to promote his deal for Josette and Banat shoots at him. Graham flees out of the room's window onto the cornice of the building in the torrential rain, pursued by Banat and Muller. Trapped between them, he is saved when Haki appears and shoots Muller. Banat wounds Haki but blinded by the rain, misses Graham. The two struggle and Banat falls to his death. Back in the present, Haki tells Graham as he finishes the letter that Stephanie is waiting for him but wonders why the engineer took decisive action when he had been so indecisive before. Graham tears up the now completed letter and tells Haki that he simply got mad and wasn't going to take any more.

Tags: intrigue, murder

Review:
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.
Orson Welles graciously denied having any directing role in Norman Foster's 'Journey into Fear (1943),' though his influence appears to be all over it.
You won't, of course, fail to notice that the film's cast also boasts more than a few Welles regulars, mostly members of his Mercury Theatre team  Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane, Ruth Warrick and Welles himself.
The film's screenplay was written by Cotten, his sole attempt at writing {outside some uncredited work on 'The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)'}, a pity since the dialogue is frequently crisp, intelligent and memorable.'Journey into Fear' is one of those rare WWII-themed films of the early 1940s that you wouldn't automatically class as propaganda.
Much of the story takes place on a small passenger ship, on which American engineer Howard Graham (Cotten) seeks refuge from German assassins, who are hell-bent on delaying his return home with important Allied intelligence.
Cotten is strong in the lead role, playing Graham as a frightened and confused amateur, a role reminiscent of Holly Martins from 'The Third Man (1949),' rather than the experienced and resourceful American spy we would otherwise expect in such a film.
Welles lends his mighty presence to the role of the Turkish Colonel Haki, though he is noticeably more subdued than usual.In one final manner, 'Journey into Evil' is very much like an Orson Welles film: it was re-edited at the studio's request.
Cotten is fine as Howard Graham, a naval engineer whose assistance to the Turkish navy the Nazis would like to cut short.
The plot has a many intricacies and concealed identities, but the strongest character by far is the Turkish head of intelligence, Col. Haki, played by Welles as a powerful, shrewd, smart man with a trace of self-mocking humour.
Despite the obvious flaws in continuity and plotting, Eric Ambler's novel has been so changed in transferring it to the screen that he didn't even recognize it as his own story, according to Robert Osborne of TCM.The marquee value of Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles is likely to lure viewers into thinking they will see another classic along the lines of THE THIRD MAN.
The usual Welles Mercury Theater players fill the supporting roles, along with the beautiful Dolores Del Rio. Once the film leaves the claustrophobic freighter and shows Cotten running from his captors, it takes on heightened interest.
Welles books passage on a tramp freighter for Cotten and the freighter is loaded with highly interesting characters, one of whom at least is a Nazi assassin.This was another Mercury Theater production with most of the regulars from Citizen Kane/The Magnificent Ambersons back again.
Journey Into Fear is undoubtedly the greatest film that Orson Welles never took credit for directing.
If he didn't officially direct you can take it to the bank that Norman Foster knew exactly what Welles was trying to get out of each and every scene.Look also here for a good performance by Mexican cinema great Dolores Del Rio as a most mysterious femme fatale on the freighter.Journey Into Fear is a short film, slightly less than 70 minutes running time.
It's all appropriate confusing conjecture tho since the film itself has a strange quirkiness nestling within its arresting visuals.The story is based on Eric Ambler's highly regarded spy thriller, and sees Howard Graham {Joseph Cotton} as an American engineer, who after a conference in Turkey finds that someone is trying to kill him.
There's some nice technical Welles trademarks in here, such as crane shots {the opening scene is moodily awesome} and Welles' well publicised love of magic is given a cute nod during one particularly impacting sequence.Along side Cotton the cast contains solid performers like Dolores del Rio, Everett Sloane, Ruth Warwick and Agnes Moorehead.
Joseph Cotten plays an American armaments engineer on the run from the Nazis in "Journey into Fear," a 1943 film with a script by Cotten (from a story by Eric Ambler) and costarring Orson Welles and Delores del Rio. Cotten is working on a deal to supply Turkey with weapons to fight the Axis.
Not the noir masterpiece we've come to expect with the likes of Welles and Cotton in the cast, but still an engaging film with cleverly shot scenes, witty dialog, and suspense.
Graham is immediately questioned by the head of the Turkish secret police Colonel Haki (played with joyful exuberance by Welles) and for his protection, and the interests of the Turkish military, is put on a ship deemed the "safest" route back to the U.S. Of course this is not the case and the ship is filled with a cast of menacing characters, many not what or whom they seem.
A rather innocuous collaboration between Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, the final and weakest of the trio of films released by Welles' Mercury studio (the other two being "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons")."Journey Into Fear" plays like second-rate Graham Greene, with Cotten playing an American munitions dealer who finds himself the target of an assassination attempt by a group of Nazis.
The film's got some nice touches, and there's a pretty exciting shoot-out finale that's something right out of Hitchcock, but the overall package isn't that memorable.Welles has a supporting role as a Turkish police chief and Welles regular Agnes Moorehead appears as a grumpy French woman.
It is very noirish and photogenic, and the combination of wet chase and the presence of a murky character played by Orson Welles and an all-American one played by Joseph Cotten prefigure `The Third Man.' Joseph Cotten had some of the same American innocence and ready outrage in both films.
He doesn't get the dark beauty (Alida Valli or Dolores del Rio) in either, though he has and keeps a wife in `Journey.'The film probably makes sense to those unfamiliar with the book (and such viewers aren't distracted by thinking about what's been changed).
Having watched The Magnificent Ambersons last night, I decided to watch the next movie that involved Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, and Agnes Moorehead: Journey Into Fear.
Let me first address the credits-I'm willing to believe the quote from Welles that he did not direct nor write this movie but simply produced with Norman Foster helming and Cotten himself adapting the screenplay from an Eric Ambler novel.
I especially liked Frank Readick's performance as Mathews-a cockney socialist-especially near the end when he says some radical things in front of his wife (Moorehead) to hide something he's planning with Cotten's Howard Graham.
However Howard quickly finds that he is far from being out of danger as his pursuers are on the boat as well.With keys part of the Third Man cast involved in this thriller, I decided to take a look and had hoped for a film that perhaps would be as enjoyable as that.
Welles has a small role and seems to enjoy himself playing a role that has little screen time but is mentioned throughout the film; I'm not sure if he did direct his own scenes but that is the rumour.
Assuming that he did direct the majority, if not all, of the film (and I do believe this) Foster does a very good job of working with shadows in early scenes and in the boat  some of his angles are effective, although it is easy to see (with some of his shots) why people generally believe that it was Welles calling the shots.Overall this is an enjoyable thriller with a dark atmosphere brought out by good direction throughout.
Graham is forced to go to the Turkish police and Colonel Haki (Orson Welles) from the secret service shows him photograph of Banat, who has been hired by the Nazi Muller (Eustace Wyatt) to kill him.
With the names of Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton and Dolores Del Rio, any viewer would expect a great classic but the result is a disappointing plot.
I have a suspicion, knowing Orson Welles' sly sense of humor and his presence as both co-director and co-producer, that this may have been exactly his intention, i.e. to erect a glittery (or in this case, gloomy and rain-streaked) film noir edifice with nothing inside, just as a lark.
While in Turkey with his wife, Navy engineer Howard Graham (Joseph Cotten) finds himself pursued by Nazi agents out to kill him for reasons that aren't so clear to him (or us).
Joseph Cotten stars in his own screenplay (based on a novel by Eric Ambler, master of the WW2 spy story), with a cast studded with members of the Mercury Theatre troupe (Welles, Moorehead, etc.).Welles takes a plum part as the head of the Turkish secret police, who forces Cotten to leave town on a "traveling slum" of a boat, filled with interesting characters (at least one of whom is probably his would-be killer).
I have seen two versions of this film - the 68 minute version supposedly recut by Orson Welles as part of his contract settlement with RKO (see IMDb trivia) and what I assume must be the first Norman Foster cut which was panned by the critics at the time.
The opening shot of "Journey into Fear" is riveting, pure Welles, and promises of great things to come...but they never do, until perhaps the final ten minutes of the motion picture.
Great tracking shot in the opening, fine premise set up with the film's first (and principal) villain, then the scene cuts to Joseph Cotten, Edward Sloan, and Ruth Warrick, and suddenly it is like the driest stage play one can imagine.
This is a wonderful treat for the experienced cineast, full of details, a brilliantly innovative script full of unexpected turns, Joseph Cotten rehearsing his character for "The Third Man", Orson Welles enjoying his part as a Turkish secret police chief speaking fluent Turkish to the full, a number of intriguing ladies, delightfully original fellow passengers, a murderer out of this world all the more scary for his total silence, in close association with a very treacherous traitor, marvellously exotic surroundings in Istanbul and Batumi, a film couldn't really get more exotic, and a lady waiting for her husband with not the slightest suspicion of what is going on, while he strenuously tries to explain it to her through the entire film, which in the end comes to a typical Wellesian/Amblerian surprise...
The story becomes complicated and Howard meets up with Col. Haki, (Orson Welles) who orders Howard not to travel by train and go on a ship, which will be much safer for him, as he warns him that Nazi Agents might be after him because of his knowledge of weapons and armament secrets he is taking back to the United States.
It's a ship full of unusual characters and the suspected Nazi agent has followed him.Orson Welles was involved in the writing, directing, and producing of this film.
"Journey into Fear" is only a minor film from the likes of Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton.
A fun noir thriller, teaming Joseph Cotten (SHADOW OF A DOUBT) and Orson Welles (CITIZEN KANE).
Journey Into Fear (1943) *** (out of 4) Joseph Cotten plays a US engineer aboard a boat being stalked by Nazi assassins.
Cotten is very good in the lead and the supporting cast is also impressive with Dolores del Rio, Welles and Ruth Warrick turning in fine work..
Colonel Haki (Orson Welles), the head of the Turkish secret police, assists Graham to escape by boat to Batumi, on the Soviet Black Sea coast.
Director Norman Foster made some of the Charlie Chan and Mr Moto films as well as the campy Batman TV series which explains this low key rather mediocre film which stars Joseph Cotton and has a cameo from Orson Welles as the Turkish Colonel Haki.Cotton plays a naval engineer and arms dealer travelling in Istanbul with his wife and ends up nearly getting killed by hired Nazi agents.
The story which is based on Eric Ambler's espionage novel of the same name is quite involved and the action takes place in an environment which is often tense and menacing.Howard Graham (Joseph Cotten) is an American armaments expert who visits Istanbul with his wife during World War 11 and is met almost immediately by a man called Kopeikin (Everett Sloan) who is his company's local representative.
Norman Foster is credited as being the film's director but over the years there's also been a great deal of speculation concerning the extent to which Orson Welles was involved.
Glancing at downloads in order to do a quick comparison,the very first link I clicked on was forthe long out of print French remastered version,which led to me getting set for two journeys into fear.The plot-WWII-Turkey.Entering the hotel,US ballistics expert Howard Graham (who wants to help re-arm Turkish ships) and his wife Stephanie are met by Kopeikin,who works for Howard's company.Wanting to talk business,Kopekin takes Howard alone to a night club.Unknown to the guys,a mysterious man looking across the streets follows them.During their chat,Howard joins a magician for his big set-piece.Dimming the lights,a loud gun shot is heard.Aiming for Howard,the stranger discovers that he killed the magician instead.
Pulled from the club to the secret police headquarters,Howard is told of a Nazi plot designed to send a shiver of fear down his spine.View on the film:-Note:Due to how different they are,I will give both cuts separate reviews.Reuniting with two fellow stars of Citizen Kane,co-writer/(along with Richard Collins/ Crime Without Passion director Ben Hecht & Orson Welles) Joseph Cotten gives a striking performance as Howard via skilfully blending Howard's wide-eyed, fish out of water Film Noir loner with a quick-wit, that gives Howard's battle against the underworld an espionage atmosphere.
Emphasizing the comedic elements with chainsaw editing,the relationship between the Graham's is limited to just two scenes.This leads to the movie being transformed into a cheerful man on the run caper, complete with large jumps in plot, (where does Howard get the gun from?) a lack of psychological depth into Howard's Film Noir nightmare,and an ending that is chopped off, with a misshaped happy coda that brings a character back from the dead.The Euro cut:8/10Pulling the narration,happy coda and focus on the comedic side,the screenplay by Welles/Cotten/Collins and Hecht open up the raw war time Film Noir paranoia,by smartly making Howard's attempt to escape from Banat on a ship,to sail onto fragile relationships,where doubt and mistrust is lit by the Film Noir troubled times.
This makes Banet not only one of the most bizarre hit-man in movie history but at the same time one of the most comical.Put on a boat traveling to the Black Sea port of Batumi by Turkist police Col. Haki, Orson Wells, it's thought that this would keep Graham safe and out of arms way until he can safely return to the USA.
Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton made several great films together through the 40s/50s one of which is the overlooked Journey Into Fear.
Orson Welles contribution as Turkish secret police Colonel Haki is quite understated in this film, not allowing his presence to dominate the screen, so instead showcasing the lead actor's talent with the screen being hogged by Joseph Cotten.
Ruth Warrick plays Graham's wife and sultry Dolores Del Rio (at the time of filming, Wells's current partner), a courtesan and traveling companion, are the feminine interests.
Directed by Norman Foster from an Orson Welles - Joseph Cotten screenplay; Journey Into Fear is anything but that and feels solely as a director-actor combination contrivance for the studio's (possibly contractual) need to provide the release of product.
With Orson Welles' attention torn between "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Journey Into Fear", and a three year affair with Dolores del Rio about to come to an end, the movie winds up pretty much a chaotic mess.
Based on a novel by writer Eric Ambler, the task of writing the screenplay was handed off to Joseph Cotten who had never done one before, which goes a long way to explain why he had such a confused look on his face for a good part of the story.Which is not to say the picture is all bad.
Naval engineer Howard Graham (Cotten) didn't seem to be particularly troubled by the idea that his life was in danger, and if Peter Banat (Jack Moss) was supposed to be an effective assassin, his prior victims must have been pretty dumb.In a way, this movie reminded me of well regarded Hitchcock films that many fans find praiseworthy but simply leave me baffled.