Ministry of Fear (1944)

Ministry of Fear is an American thriller film first released in 1944, directed by Fritz Lang.  The film stars Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke and Percy Waram.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


England, 1940. Leaving an asylum where he has spent the last two years, Stephen Neale decides to return  to London, even though the capital is under attack from German bombers.  On the way, he stops at a garden fete where he wins a cake by correctly guessing its weight.  In the train to London, Neale strikes up a conversation with a blind man, who suddenly assaults him and runs off with the cake.  Neale gives chase, but the blind man falls victim to a German shell.  Convinced that he has become caught up in an elaborate plot, Neale hires a private detective and conducts his own investigation.  This leads him to the organisers of the charity which arranged the fete where he acquired the mysterious cake – Austrian refugees Willi and Carla Hilfe.  At a séance attended by members of the charity, a man is killed and Neale is the obvious culprit.  Carla makes discoveries of her own and it soon becomes clear that there is more at stake than Neale’s life.  The security of Great Britain is under threat, and from a very dangerous enemy…

During his very productive period in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, Fritz Lang rarely came as close to his earlier cinematic achievements as he did with this stylish suspense thriller, an obvious anti-Nazi propaganda film which bears more than a passing resemblance to Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935).   The compelling narrative, based on a popular albeit convoluted Graham Greene novel, is complemented by a stunning visual design which is classic film noir at its most alluring and atmospheric.  Lang’s trademark expressionist touches (long shadows, deep-focus photography and oblique camera shots) emphasise the chilling sense of neurosis and fear that underpins the plot, conveying a very real sense of what it’s like to find yourself in a Kafka-like world where nothing appears to make sense and where everyone is a potential enemy.  Although the plot is over-complicated and at times confusing, Lang’s artistry and some gripping performances keep his audience thoroughly hooked.  It’s an unsettlingly dark film where nothing can be taken at face value, where death lurks in every shadow, and where the outcome is far from certain.  You would hardly think it was made during World War II...

© James Travers 2007

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