MINISTRY OF FEAR (1944) B/W 86m dir: Fritz Lang

w/Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram, Dan Duryea, Alan Napier, Erskine Sanford, Thomas Louden, Aminta Dyne

From The Movie Guide: "Uncertainty and fear of the unknown are the hallmarks of this classic film noir by master director Lang, which, until the last revelation, is guaranteed to puzzle and chill the viewer. The suspense in this thriller is terrific as Lang, ever the careful craftsman, shows only what is necessary to the confusing plot. The low-key lighting and [Henry] Sharp's moody cinematography are perfectly suited to the film's elaborate, Kafkaesque approach wherein shadow, silence and normally pedestrian movements, taken out of context, take on an air of evil and doom. Milland gives a spellbinding performance as a man who, ostensibly having murdered his wife, is released from an insane asylum after two years. She was ill, and he brought poison home to perform euthanasia but could not bring himself to go through with it; while his back was turned she took the fatal dose and he was convicted nevertheless. The terrors of the asylum, though, are nothing compared to the Nazi spies of the wartime England into which Milland steps. Lang, screenwriter-producer Seton Miller and Graham Greene (author of the source novel) have in store for Milland (and us) a succession of sinister seances, sinister suits, sinister scissors, sinister blind men and, best of all, a sinister cake. Eat at your own delicious risk."