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Reviews
Journey Into Fear (1943)
Good illustration/adaptation of the classic suspense novel
`Journey Into Fear' certainly has an Orson Welles look. Although he
received
neither directing nor writing credit (credit went to Norman Foster and
Joseph Cotten, respectively), I think that most of what is there is his.
The
problem is that there is not enough there there. The on-board relationships
should have been developed more. All of them seem perfunctory.
Combining the shooting by a good marksman who misses his target and
stalking
him in the nightclub are combined into an altogether more satisfying single
event.The escape from the Nazis is more protracted and less violent than in
Eric Ambler's book. 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's an important munitions engineer here and a hack western
writing there. 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). It is
suspenseful even for someone like me who recently read the
book
Journey Into Fear (1943)
Good illustration/adaptation of the classic suspense novel
`Journey Into Fear' certainly has an Orson Welles look. Although he
received
neither directing nor writing credit (credit went to Norman Foster and
Joseph Cotten, respectively), I think that most of what is there is his.
The
problem is that there is not enough there there. The on-board relationships
should have been developed more. All of them seem perfunctory.
Combining the shooting by a good marksman who misses his target and
stalking
him in the nightclub are combined into an altogether more satisfying single
event.The escape from the Nazis is more protracted and less violent than in
Eric Ambler's book. 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's an important munitions engineer here and a hack western
writing there. 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). It is
suspenseful even for someone like me who recently read the
book