"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.
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.