Ministry Of Fear (1944)

Just released from a mental asylum for the mercy killing of his wife, a man (Ray Milland) wins a cake at a carnival by mistake. The cake was intended for a member of a covert Nazi group working in the U.K. but that mistake plunges Milland into a maelstrom of attempted murder, seances, femme fatales and spies. Based on a novel by Graham Greene and directed by Fritz Lang, the film is a rather far fetched if modestly entertaining spy thriller. But the film makers have excised all the darkness and moral ambiguity of Greene's book and put nothing in its place. This is one movie that deserves a remake! One of Lang's least memorable films. It doesn't help that the film is saddled with the pretty but bland Marjorie Reynolds as the heroine when the wickedly elegant "bad girl" Hillary Brooke is so much more intriguing. On the plus side, there's the atmospheric noir like cinematography of Henry Sharp (Vidor's THE CROWD). The workman like score is by Victor Young. With Dan Duryea, Alan Napier, Carl Esmond, Cyril Delevanti and Mary Field.