Wrong-man Ray Milland gets caught up in mystery and intrigue in MINISTRY OF FEAR (courtesy Photofest)
MINISTRY OF FEAR (Fritz Lang, 1944)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Friday, February 4, and Saturday, February 5, 1:00, 4:40, 8:20
Series continues through February 10
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
Based on the 1943 novel by Graham Greene, Fritz Lang’s MINISTRY OF FEAR is a classic Hitchcockian noir about an innocent man caught up in a dangerous web of mystery and intrigue. Ray Milland stars as Stephen Neale, a man who, as the film opens, is being released from an asylum after serving time related to the death of his wife. His freedom doesn’t last long, as he stops at a local fair and visits the fortune-teller, who accidentally helps him win a guess-the-weight cake that some very bad people want to get their hands in. Out on the run, his only friends are Willi (Carl Esmond) and Carla (Marjorie Reynolds), foreign siblings who run the charity organization the Mothers of Free Nations, the sponsor of the fair. Throw in a séance, the Blitz, an old blind man, an alcoholic private investigator, a book called THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NAZISM, a disbelieving Scotland Yard detective, and wonderfully shadowy camerawork and the result is a tense, exciting spy tale filled with plenty of twists and surprises. MINISTRY OF FEAR is screening with Lang’s 1941 thriller MAN HUNT, starring Joan Bennett and Walter Pidgeon, as part of Film Forum’s Fritz Lang in Hollywood series, which continues through February 10 with such other great twin bills as CLASH BY NIGHT (1952) and RANCHO NOTORIOUS (1952) on February 6-7 and YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (1937) and YOU AND ME (1938) on February 9-10.