What a team! Graham Greene and Fritz Lang. What an actor! Ray Milland. What a movie! This one will stay with you for awhile. Though Greene did better work, i.e his masterpiece the screenplay for "The Third Man," and Lang did better work, "Metropolis, "M," "Fury." Together they make "Ministry of Fear" sizzle.

Today just about any movie from the 40's and 50's shot in black and white with darkness, rain, or shadows is labeled film noir. I don't really know if "Ministry of Fear" is a film noir as such but I do know it's great film making, somewhat along the lines of Hitchcock's "39 Steps." Ray Milland as Stephen Neale is mistaken for a go between espionage agent, called Cost or Travers depending on the circumstances, played to perfection by Dan Duryea. Neale guesses the weight of a cake as foretold by a fortune teller. Obviously the cake is valuable because immediately upon realizing their mistake the spy ring sets out to frame and kill Neale to retrieve the tasty morsel. Not to be missed is an exciting sequence aboard a train involving an alleged blind man. The rest of the movie filled with suspense, mystery, and intrigue involves Neal teaming with Carla Hilfe (Marjorie Reynolds--later of television's "Life of Riley" fame) and her brother to catch the culprits and discover what it's all about. Gradually Neal comes to suspect even Carla herself though by this time he's fallen madly in love with her. The feeling seems to be mutual. The denouement is a showdown between Neal and the spy ring which is exciting and a logical way to wrap up the movie.

Ray Milland walks off with the show even though the rest of the cast gives him able support. It's easy to see that Ray Milland was well on his way to winning the Oscar the very next year for his standout performance in Billy Wilder's "Lost Weekend." It was just a matter of time before his acting talent would be formally recognized. It's a good thing "Lost Weekend" came around for Milland for he never again played a role that so suited his abilities as an actor, though he still had many years ahead of him to be on the big screen.

The script is a witty one with many good lines. Though Lang's direction is good there are a few boring parts following the frame-up. A few more blind man type scenes would have helped tremendously. Still a very good espionage thriller of the old school with a title that reaches out and grabs you to make you want to see what the "Ministry of Fear" is all about.

"Ministry Of Fear" is set in England during World War 11 and is an exciting spy thriller with a complicated plot, plenty of suspense and action that unfolds at a lively pace. It was adapted for the screen by Seton I Miller from a Grahame Greene novel and was also directed impressively by Fritz Lang.

Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) isn't a typical "spy thriller hero" as he's simply a man who was unjustly incarcerated in a mental asylum for a couple of years following the death of his terminally ill wife. He was believed to have assisted her in committing suicide but in reality, she had taken her own life. When he gets released from the asylum, fate continues to be unkind to him as he gets mistaken for a Nazi spy, has his life put in danger on two occasions and also gets accused of another murder which he also didn't commit!!

When Neale leaves the asylum and buys a ticket for London, he has some time to spare before his train is due to depart and so visits a charity fête which is being held close to the station. After winning a cake in a "guess the weight" competition, he's joined on the train by a man who appears to be blind and when their journey is interrupted by an air raid, Neale's travelling companion attacks him and makes off with the cake. Neale then chases him over some moorland and is surprised when the man starts shooting at him. The shooting only stops after the man is killed when the building in which he hides is bombed.

Neale later decides to hire a private detective called George Rennit (Erskine Sanford) to investigate the charity (The Mothers Of Free Nations) which had organised the fête and this in turn leads to him meeting Willi Hilfe (Carl Esmond) and his sister Carla (Marjorie Reynolds) who run the organisation. They are Austrians and both subsequently help him after he attends a séance where a man called Cost (Dan Duryea) is shot dead and Neale is accused of his murder.

Neale and Carla fall in love and she helps him to investigate whether "The Mothers Of Free Nations" has in fact been infiltrated and used as a cover for a group of Nazi spies. The couple escape an attempt on their lives after a suitcase that they'd been asked to deliver explodes and Neale eventually discovers that the cake he'd won had contained some microfilm which was intended for delivery to the spy ring. A number of further surprising developments follow before Neale's investigations are successfully completed.

"Ministry Of Fear" contains a number of film noir motifs such as clocks, mirrors and expressionist photography but another significant one is the uncertain and changing identities of some of its characters. There are two women (a fortune teller and a medium at a séance) who both claim to be Mrs Bellane and Dan Duryea's character operates under two different names (Cost & Travers) as does Carl Esmond's (Hilfe & Macklin).

It's not only the identities of people that can't be trusted in this movie as a number of the characters are also not what they appear to be and the fortune teller and the medium are both fakes. Deception on this kind of scale creates a sinister atmosphere within which it becomes impossible to trust anyone and Neale even has reason to doubt where Carla's loyalties lie. In a situation where deceit is everywhere and no-one can be trusted, Neale's paranoia understandably grows and is soon accompanied by feelings of alienation as he also can't get the police to believe him because his previous conviction and the time he spent in the asylum undermine the credibility of everything he says.

"Ministry Of Fear" really is very entertaining on a number of levels and Ray Milland is particularly good as an ordinary man who has to cope with all the danger, desperation and confusion that he experiences during this high speed adventure.

The story comes hazily through a so-so screenplay helped by astute direction and great cinematography. The film opens on a ticking clock in a dark room and then to Ray Milland sitting at a table. Tick tock tick tock. He's waiting for 12:00 when he will be released from an asylum where he has been for two years for the mercy killing of his terminal wife. Set in war-time London, but made in Hollywood, there are some unlikely characters. Nonetheless, the basic spy caper story line is well presented in numerous marvelous scenes. The aforementioned ticking clock in the dark room, the fake blind man on the train, the seance, the apartment with the modern art and the pistol in the handbag, the exploding suitcase, Dan Duryea dialing a phone number on a radial phone with the biggest, sharpest pair of scissors you're likely to ever see, the fatal gun shot through the closed door and the light coming through the bullet hole, the shootout on the roof....it just goes on. I'm sure it strays from Greene's novel, but it merits watching anyway for Milland and for the pure cinematic quality that is evident from beginning to end.