A fun noir thriller, teaming Joseph Cotten (SHADOW OF A DOUBT) and Orson Welles (CITIZEN KANE). An arms dealer in Turkey finds himself the subject of an assassination plot by Nazi agents who are determined to stop him helping the alliance. The story begins proper during a magic show when a magician is accidentally shot; the intended victim (Cotten) must then flee on a ship back to America, but all on board may not have kindly intents towards him.Oddly, the film this most reminded me of is the fun Sherlock Holmes story PURSUIT TO ALGIERS, which has a very similar storyline. In any case, JOURNEY INTO FEAR is a fun film to watch for the visuals, featuring plenty of moody black-and-white photography and menacing shadows from which an assassin could spring at any moment. The story picks up when the setting moves to the ship, the director making the best of the claustrophobic confines.Cotten has always been a reliable star and that's no different here. Welles himself plays the larger-than-life supporting role of a Turkish ally, while the villains pitted against the pair are a lot of fun. The high rise climax is a hoot.

The American ballistic expert and naval engineer Howard Graham (Joseph Cotton) is traveling with his wife Mrs. Stephanie Graham (Ruth Warrick) to Batumi by train. They stop in Istanbul to meet Kopeikin (Everett Sloane), who is the armaments representative of Graham's company, and he takes Graham to a nightclub to discuss business. Kopeikin introduces the dancer Josette Martel (Dolores Del Rio) to him and during the show, the magician invites Graham to go to the stage. The killer Banat (Jack Moss) tries to kill Graham, but hits the magician instead. Graham is forced to go to the Turkish police and Colonel Haki (Orson Welles) from the secret service shows him photograph of Banat, who has been hired by the Nazi Muller (Eustace Wyatt) to kill him. Haki asks Graham to travel to Batumi by steamship since it would be a safer trip. However, Graham stumbles over Banat and Muller, in the beginning of his journey into fear."Journey into Fear" is a deceptive classic with an entertaining spy story. With the names of Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton and Dolores Del Rio, any viewer would expect a great classic but the result is a disappointing plot. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Jornada do Pavor" ("Journey into Fear")

Considering the turmoil in the aftermath of Kane one could suppose that we're lucky to have even a truncated second/third film from old Awesome. It was, of course, always going to be a problem following Kane even if everything was running smoothly, as it was, Welles was here, there, and everywhere initially trying to decide on a project, then leaving a second masterpiece in the hands of the abattoir known as RKO whilst off in Rio on an aborted project and somewhere in the middle of all this deciding on an Eric Ambler novel - all his life Welles was a sucker for espionage thrillers - rounding up his Mercury players, assigning Jo Cotton - who had never written anything more ambitious than a Christmas card - to adapt the novel, playing only his second ever acting role on screen, albeit a brief one, coming up with another collection of 'signature' shots and handing the directing credit to Norman Foster. Okay, it's less than perfect - in one sense it resembles a blueprint for Mr. Arkadin - but even imperfect Welles is light years better than, for example, overrated 'pure' Hitchcock. If ultimately disappointing it is at the same time fascinating.

A film that may well qualify as a cheap thrill ride. It has a mix of mediocre, but also some pretty good scenes. Orson Welles is listed as an uncredited director, one can assume that he has had some influence here. Although Welles is barely in the film, and with one of his more mediocre performances, he still out acts all the others, even Cotton.The film's main problem is that it does not bother to go particularly deep into things. It seems like they were in an awful rush just to make something. Characters fly from side to side, and nobody seems to know exactly what to do with them. It tries to build up a little humor, but it usually falls rather flat.Despite all this, Journey Into Fear is an entertaining movie. The climax scene is phenomenal, and it has many good scenes to back it up. A couple of not too surprising twists makes it exciting enough, but not more than your usual B-crime movie. A not too long running time makes the problems not bother me as much as they otherwise would, albeit some extra scenes and more innovations could have done it some good. But as I said it's entertaining enough. Good enough to relax to after a tiring day when you do not care to think.