Search - Journey into Fear on DVD

Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1942 Format: DVD SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Studio: Magna Films Members Wishing: 4 Genres: Thriller, Psychological Thriller, War Spy Film

Orson Welles had planned to produce, direct and star in RKO's Journey Into Fear, but prior commitments compelled him to vacate the director's chair in favor of Norman Foster. Joseph Cotten, who starred as an American gunnery engineer up to his armpits in international intrigue, adapted the screenplay from the novel by Eric Ambler. Targeted for extermination by the Gestapo, Cotten secretly books passage on a steamer bound from Turkey to Batumi. His fellow passengers include dancer Dolores Del Rio and her gigolo partner Jack Durant; talkative Frenchwoman Agnes Moorehead and her browbeaten husband Frank Readick; German archaeologist Eustace Wyatt; and a secretive, obese, thick-spectacled gent, played by Orson Welles' business partner Jack Moss. From the outset, it is no secret that Moss is a Nazi assassin. The question: who are his contacts, and how long will it be before Cotten is forced into a showdown? The very complex storyline was made even more so by RKO's decision to pare the film down to 69 minutes; several resultant plot gaps had to be bridged by an ongoing offscreen narration, presented in the form of a letter written by Cotten to his worried wife Ruth Warrick. As one can see, virtually the entire roster of Welles' Mercury Theatre troupe is involved in Journey into Fear. Welles himself plays colorful Turkish police officer Colonel Haki, while Everett Sloane, Hans Conried and Edgar Barrier essay significant smaller roles. Director Norman Foster so slavishly imitates the patented Wellesian visual style (following Welles' pre-production "storyboards" dictating choice of camera angle, lighting etc.) that many historians have assumed that Welles himself directed the picture. Remade for Canadian TV in 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joseph Cotten - Howard Graham
Dolores Del Rio - Josette Marlel
Ruth Warrick - Stephanie Graham
Orson Welles - Col. Haki
Jack Durant - Cogo
Agnes Moorehead - Mrs. Mathews

Norman Foster's Journey into Fear (retitled "Estambul" in Spain) has been issued on DVD in Europe from Spain's Manga Films in a decent if unexceptional edition, transferred from a fairly clean 35 mm source that has lots of detail but also the kind of blemishes that one would expect from a 60-year-old movie that has not been subject to serious restoration work. The Spanish-issued title is a Region 2 disc, playable in Europe, the Middle East, and Japan, or on properly setup computers or all-region players everywhere, and this may be the best way to get the disc -- it doesn't seem likely that Warner Home Video, which controls the RKO library, will devote much attention to a movie that seems little more than a footnote to Orson Welles' career. Actually, although it was directed by Foster, the production was planned in great detail (down to the camera angles) by Orson Welles (who also appears in the movie), and Foster evidently followed Welles' instructions to the letter because even with the cuts imposed by the studio (which brought its running time down to 80 minutes from what would have been closer to 100 minutes), the movie looks like a Welles film and feels like a Welles film. The contrasts are a bit flat -- as is the audio -- when compared to such RKO restorations as Citizen Kane or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. As with other Manga Films releases, the movie can be viewed either dubbed into Spanish without subtitles, dubbed with subtitles, or with its original English-language track and Spanish subtitles -- the latter are tinted amber and surprisingly unobtrusive. The disc opens automatically on a straightforward menu (in Spanish), which includes access to filmographies of four of the stars of the movie and to a pair of British television installments from a television series apparently called Hollywood Remembers, devoted to Welles and to the movie's star (and screenwriter) Joseph Cotten; the latter includes trailers for several Cotten films, including Portrait of Jennie and Since You Went Away. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide