Simply Perfect

A Masterpiece!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Excellent film noir thriller directed by Fritz Lang. Probably the closest Lang got to doing a Hitchcock movie. Ray Milland, in one of his best roles, plays a man just released from an asylum after two years. He wanders into a charity bazaar where a fortune teller and a cake (yes, a cake) put him smack dab in the middle of a plot involving a Nazi spy ring. It's a gripping movie stylishly directed by Lang with a good script and interesting characters. Some touches of brilliance throughout, such as the scene on the train with the blind man and the aftermath.As I said before, Ray Milland has one of his best roles here as a man trying to unravel the mystery and remain sane while dealing with the insane situation he's thrust into. Lovely Marjorie Reynolds plays the female lead and has terrific chemistry with Milland. The rest of the cast includes Alan Napier, Dan Duryea, Hillary Brooke, Carl Esmond, and Erskine Sanford. It's really a good cast overall. Some spectacular movies came out during the WW2 years and, in my opinion, the really great espionage thrillers like this have stood the test of time the best.

It's wartime England. Stephen Neale is released after two years in Lembridge Asylum. He had killed his wife in a mercy killing. He comes across a charity fair. There's a guess-the-weight-of-the-cake contest and also a mysterious fortune teller. He wins the cake but something strange is going on. A blind man gets on the train with him but he turns not to be blind. He tries to steal the cake but is killed during the bombing raid. Neale hires private eye George Rennit to help him investigate. He tracks down Mothers of Free Nations which ran the charity fair. Austrian refugees Willi and his sister Carla Hilfe run the charity.I love the start of the movie. The strangeness of the cake and the blind man. The guy had just gotten out of the asylum. The movie settles into a standard spy thriller. The rest isn't quite as interesting but it's workmanlike. It isn't the strange dark weird film that I thought at first. It's tamer and not as interesting.

I know that among many film buffs of vintage Crime/Thrillers from Hollywood's heyday, director Fritz Lang ranks right up there in the Top 10 of "Best Ever". And, hey, that "OK" by me.But strictly speaking from a personal point of view (and this is after seeing 6 of what are considered to be Lang's best works from the 40s & 50s), I view him as a decidedly over-rated film-maker.In his position as a movie-maker (as is clearly evident here with Ministry Of Fear), Lang obviously took himself way too seriously and this, in turn, caused him to repeatedly over-play the drama (to the point of almost-parody) of any given story.When it came to the genre of Film Noir, Fritz Lang was a director whose completed films didn't offer me, as a viewer, much satisfaction.I mean, even novelist Graham Greene (whose book this film's story was based upon) came out (some years after this film's release) and publicly stated that he was less than pleased with Lang's treatment of his story. And, I, for one, couldn't be in more agreement with Greene on that one (especially since he was talking about his own book).Set during the "Blitz" in war-torn England, Ministry Of Fear's somewhat lacklustre and anti-climatic story deals with elements of paranoia, as well as espionage where, in the realm of things, everybody is a potential suspect (and Lang, pretty much milks this aspect of the story to its very last drop).Filmed in a grubby-looking b&w, Ministry Of Fear had a running time of 90 minutes.

Can we say that Fritz Lange was a genius of the noir. You bet! Ray Milland is a man accused of murder, mayhem, and plotting against the government. Just out of a sanatorium for the mercy killing of his wife, he becomes embroiled in a Nazi plot. A piece of cake from a bazaar is the real character of this film. He wins it and the next thing he knows a blind man knocks him out and steals the cake. Running into the darkened night he chases the man when a bomb explodes and everything including the man and the cake disappear into the fog. Now he must find out what is going on and runs into Mothers of the Free Nation headed by a beautiful woman and her brother. One thing after the next, he is desperate to clear himself. Can he, before the clock runs out? Ray Milland is great as the weary man on the run. So good looking, so suave and yet so vulnerable. The film is to me, an earlier version of North By Northwest, where Cary Grant is in the same predicament. Hitchcock would have called the cake, the McGuffin. Dan Duryea is especially sinister as the tailor with giant scissors. You may have to watch the film several times so you don't miss all the twists and turns.