Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15576 in VHS
• Released on: 1987-08-08
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 68 minutes

Customer Reviews

A Clever Addendum To Orson Welles' Career
Although credited to Norman Foster, and co-written by Joseph Cotton, Welles infact "supervised" (i.e. controlled) most of this production. What we get is a tight and very compact (barely over an hour in length) thriller.

Joseph Cotton plays an Engineer who someone is trying to assasinate. Trapped on a steamship crosing the black sea, he avoids attempts on his life (several of them by Welle's real life business manager, Jack Moss).

Think of "Journey..." as a practice run for "Touch Of Evil" and "The Third Man" (I know he didn't direct it but you'll see the similarities). The humour is broader, the dialogue not quite as sophisticated, but it is still Welles at work. While not a major work of Art, it is still a masterpiece of craft.

The Camera-work, as usual, is brilliant -- partucularly the interiors of the steam-ship. Welle's always worked his cameramen hard, forcing them to new heights; lighting rooms "without light", and building sets with ceilings (not a popular practice in the forties). It pays off -- the clautrophobia on board the ship is extreme, and Cotton is excellent as it's primary sufferer. Naturally the camera angles have Welles' innovative stamp all over them.

If you're a Welles fan, "Journey Into Fear" is an absolute must see; a nice precurser (thematically, chronologically, and cinematically) to "The Stranger".

And if you're not a Welle's fan, then you should give your corneas to someone more deserving.

PS:

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any plan for releasing this lost gem on DVD any time soon. A shame, since "Journey Into Fear" (with it's short running time) would make an excellent double bill DVD with another Welles film (The Stranger, for example).

Fun wartime film noir
Joseph Cotton plays an American munitions salesman who runs afoul of Axis agents seeking to delay his company's hard-won deal with the Turkish government... He's one of those bumbling mystery movie schnooks who keeps digging themselves in deeper and deeper, causing viewers to repeatedly smack their foreheads in disbelief... Orson Welles plays a blustering Turkish general who takes the American under his wing, perhaps protecting him, perhaps sending him to his doom. Placed on a cramped ocean liner, Cotton soon finds himself stalked by a variety of goons: which are the good guys and which are the baddies? Can you take the tension 'til you find out??

Not the greatest of journeys
Dark atmosphere and claustrophobic effects dominate this Orson Welles adaptation of the Eric Ambler novel about munitions smuggling in Turkey. It's spy vs. spy as a band of Nazi sympathizers attempts to bump off American dealer Joseph Cotten. The acting, mostly by Welles's Mercury Theatre gang, is very good, especially Cotten. The action, however, generally fails to build; even the chase scenes - one on the ledge of a hotel building in a driving rainstorm - seem uncharacteristically bland for Welles. Filled with quirky camera angles and stylistic experimentation, the movie still manages to disappoint in the long run: one expects more from this masterful crew.