The story comes hazily through a so-so screenplay helped by astute direction and great cinematography. The film opens on a ticking clock in a dark room and then to Ray Milland sitting at a table. Tick tock tick tock. He's waiting for 12:00 when he will be released from an asylum where he has been for two years for the mercy killing of his terminal wife. Set in war-time London, but made in Hollywood, there are some unlikely characters. Nonetheless, the basic spy caper story line is well presented in numerous marvelous scenes. The aforementioned ticking clock in the dark room, the fake blind man on the train, the seance, the apartment with the modern art and the pistol in the handbag, the exploding suitcase, Dan Duryea dialing a phone number on a radial phone with the biggest, sharpest pair of scissors you're likely to ever see, the fatal gun shot through the closed door and the light coming through the bullet hole, the shootout on the roof....it just goes on. I'm sure it strays from Greene's novel, but it merits watching anyway for Milland and for the pure cinematic quality that is evident from beginning to end.
Review of Ministry of Fear
