Ministry of Fear

Forget the phony studio settings and the script's hesitancies in adapting Graham Greene's novel about a spy hunt in wartime London. This is a wonderfully atmospheric, almost expressionistic thriller, packed with memorable moments: the jolly village fête ominously taking place at night; the open door of the railway carriage and the muted tapping which heralds the arrival of the blind man out of a cloud of steam; the rat-like tailor using an enormous pair of cutting-shears to dial his call of warning moments before they are found plunged into his stomach. And right from the opening shot of Milland waiting alone in a darkened room for the stroke of midnight - the magic hour which will release him from one paranoiac nightmare (the mercy killing of his wife) into another - Lang sets his characteristic seal of fatality on the action.