Review: Journey Into Fear

Sam Waterston plays an American geologist in Turkey on business who seems to be the target for murder. Joseph Wiseman plays a local cop, Zero Mostel is a loud Turkish embassy official, and Yvette Mimieux plays a French singer with full-on “Allo, Allo” accent. Donald Pleasence turns up as a fidgety tobacco salesman who doesn’t smoke and whose company may not exist, and why is he always following Waterston around? Vincent Price plays a Persian archaeologist who is very obviously not what he claims to be. Shelley Winters and Stanley Holloway play husband and wife, and Ian McShane plays a hired killer.

 

This 1975 adaptation of the Eric Ambler novel was directed by Daniel Mann (“Come Back, Little Sheba”, “Our Man Flint”) and has a pretty fashionable cast for its time. The 1943 version had Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, and is a bit of a critical darling. The 1975 version was dismissed by critics at the time, and has been relegated to obscurity. Vincent Price seems to be having a ball here, but I found this to be a clunky, overly loud bore. I’d like to say there’s a hidden gem here, but the critics were correct to give this one a bit of a drubbing.

 

Scripted by Trevor Wallace (“Run a Crooked Mile”) and an uncredited Stuart J. Byrne (“Doomsday Machine”), the characters played by Shelley Winters and Stanley Holloway are horribly integrated into the story. Casting is a real mixed bag here overall actually. Lead actor Sam Waterston is an uninteresting TV lightweight whose only decent moments here come when he finally starts getting scared and frenzied. Otherwise, he gets upstaged by everyone around him for both good and bad reasons. The real clunkers are Zero Mostel and the aforementioned, otherwise much-loved Winters. Mostel was genuinely terrific in the following year’s “The Front”, but here his comic hamming is entirely unwarranted. This isn’t a comedy and there’s no excuse for his dreadful, screaming performance. Winters and Stanley Holloway are essentially reprising the roles Winters and Jack Albertson memorably played in “The Poseidon Adventure”, but they don’t belong here. Shelley didn’t get an Oscar this time, and I actually resented her tired, incredible irritating schtick, much as I’ve loved her in almost everything else she did. Elsewhere, Joseph Wiseman is just OK in the role Welles played, Ian McShane is perfectly cast but underused, and Donald Pleasence offers up the correct amount (and right brand) of ham to steal a few scenes. Even better is Vincent Price walking off with the entire film in a brilliant turn as an Arab who claims not to be a terrorist. Obviously, you’re not gonna hire a white guy from St. Louis to play that role today, but it’s great to see him doing good work outside of the horror genre. Such a shame it’s in a subpar film. He also suffers one of the nastiest fates I’ve ever seen in a film, nearly to the point where you almost feel bad for him.

 

Shrill and boring political/spy thriller with an uneven cast and not a lot to care about. I knew I was in trouble when the obnoxious red credits design showed up. I hate red credits. For Vincent Price and Donald Pleasence completists only, there’s a reason why this one’s so obscure despite the cast. It’s a dud.

 

Rating: D+