In
the Orson Welles’ filmography, this 1943 espionage thriller always has an
asterisk next to the title in fans’ minds. Throughout his life, Welles insisted
it was directed by his friend Norman Foster, except when discussing the scenes
he helmed. Thanks to the misadventure of It’s
All True, much of the daily directorial work was indeed left to Foster (who
would make a bit of a name for himself with some nifty little noirs), but the
Eric Ambler adaptation definitely bears the Welles stamp. Its ragged narrative
edges also reflect RKO’s desire to edit it down under seventy minutes. Oh, but there
were longer versions screened for preview audiences and European markets. The
intrepid Munich Filmmuseum tracked down the various cuts as well as the
shooting script to reconstruct a more coherent and surprising funny super-cut
of Foster’s Journey Into Fear, which screened
last night at MoMA as part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown Welles sidebar.
It
is the early “Phony War” days of WWII, when Britain still expected to forge an
alliance with Turkey. It was therefore all fine and dandy that munitions expert
Howard Graham was in Istanbul working to rearm the Turkish navy. Graham and his
wife Stephanie are due to sail to Batumi (which really doesn’t make sense,
since the USSR was allied with Hitler at this time, but so be it), but they
will be waylaid by a convoluted conspiracy. Kopeikin, a corrupt representative
of Graham’s company drags him to a nightclub, ostensibly to meet the alluring
dancer Josette Martel. Through blind luck, Graham escapes an assassination
attempt that claims the life of magician Oo Lang Sang instead.
For
his own safety mind you, Colonel Haki of Turkish intelligence has Graham
whisked away on a dodgy tramp steamer, assuring the baffled American he will
personally see to his wife’s safety. In fact, one of the rediscovered scenes
suggests Haki does indeed give Ms. Graham some ambiguously special attention. (Let’s
not forget, Welles was quite the ladies’ man, who was once married to Rita
Hayworth. Plus, Haki’s fur hat looks smashing.) Meanwhile, Howard Graham is
spending quite a bit of time with Martel on that dodgy steamer, because she is
the only passenger he really doesn’t think is out to kill him.
Journey has always been an
entertaining yarn, but the more complete version makes considerably more sense.
Even though the Filmmuseum restoration team was again forced to resort to
intertitles in places, the reconstructed preview cut gives us a fuller sense of
the wit and irony of the script co-written by Welles and star Joseph Cotton. It
is rather delightfully mordant.
As
Graham, Cotton prefigures many of the classic everyman Hitchcokian protagonists
as well as his turn as Holly Martins in the even more classic The Third Man. He credibly portrays
Graham’s evolution from clueless passivity to resentful exasperation. While his
screen time as Haki is limited, Welles made the most of it. He was also clearly
feeling the power of the hat. Everett Sloane also adds some comedic noir flavor
as the dubious Kopeikin, while Dolores del Rio’s Martel brings plenty of femme
and a hint of fatale.
