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Actors: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Alan Napier, Erskine Sanford, Dan Duryea
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Ministry of Fear |
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After being release from a two-year stay in an asylum, Stephen Neale (Milland) arrives at a train station to await his train to London. While waiting he visits a local fair and encounters a fortuneteller. She tells him the correct weight to guess to win the prize cake. After taking possession of it and beginning to leave, another man arrives and the fair principals attempt to have Neale surrender the prize, but he refuses. He boards his train but a blind man comes on at the last moment to share the compartment with him. Neale is sociable and shares a piece of cake with the stranger who sets about oddly crumbling the slice as he eats it. When the train is stopped due to the German air raid bombing at night, he looks out of the windows blackout curtain only to be clubbed with the “blind” man's cane and have the cake stolen. He chases his attacker onto the moor while being fired at. A bomb drops and blows up the thief and the cake. A stunned Neale grabs the gun from the wreckage.
Now in London Neale hires a detective George Rennit (Sanford) to find out what is going on and why his life was at risk. Neale also pays a visit to the organization sponsoring the cake raffle, The Free Mothers. There he meets beautiful Carla (Reynolds) and her brother Willi Hilfe (Esmond) both from Austria. He and Willi go to see the fortuneteller at her home where she will be conducting a séance. Gorgeous and sexy, Mrs. Bellane (Brooke) looks nothing like the older matronly woman Neale saw at the fair. Also in attendance is doctor Forrester (Napier).
With the lights off a man is shot and all eyes are on Neale. He claims the gun in his coat pocket was never fired but is smart enough to depart before the police arrive. With no one else to turn to Neale phones Carla, as they are attracted to each other. They meet before spending the night in a crowded underground London subway station to sit out a German air raid. The next morning he and Carla find a bookstore specializing in Nazi literature. Neale is being hunted by the police and by government agents. It is revealed that Neale was institutionalized for the Mercy killing of his wife. The plot takes several more twists and turns before Carla fires a gun in a darkened hotel room killing the mysterious Nazi spy who has been sending secret information back to aid the German war effort. The spy turns out to be someone very close to her.
Fritz Lang directed this reworked Graham Greene novel into a dark, moody, sinister, and slightly campy film.
--David Fletcher, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of Ministry of Fear |
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Movie
Actual chase scenes or violence - 40%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 30%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30%
Time/Era of Movie:
- 1930's-1950's
Spying & Terrorists
Yes
Cloak & Dagger Plotlets:
- finding a spy/saboteur
Romance
Yes
The terrorist enemy is...
- racists/kkk/nazis
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- unemployed
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- brunette (Brown)
Hair style
- short/standard straight (man)
Body type
- average (man)
Events of movie makes character more...
- cynical
Ethnicity/Nationality
- British
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Hair color
- blonde
Hair style
- (woman) medium/shoulderlgn wavy
Body type
- ample bosom & buttocks (woman)
How much in movie?
- 80%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Eastern European
Main Adversary
Identity:
- enemy army
Age:
- 20's-30's
Profession/status:
- spy
Eccentric:
Yes
- deluded
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- 80%
Hair color
- brunette (Brown)
Hair type
- (man) short/standard straight
Body type
- average (man)
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Eastern European
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
How sensitive is this character?
- hard edged
Setting
Europe
Yes
European country:
- England/UK
City?
Yes
City:
- London
Misc setting
- fancy mansion
- moving train
- sewers/subways
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately messy visuals of dead
Movie makes you feel...
- challenged
How many deaths in film?
- 4-8
Kind of violence:
- guns
- knives
Unusual forms of death
- perforation--bullets
- visually blown into pieces
Check here if B&W
Yes
Is this movie based on a
- book
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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