The Ministry of Fear (Book) (1943)

One of the reasons that I enjoyed The Ministry of Fear so much is because it is a novel that’s nearly impossible to categorize. Another is that the plot contains one surprise after another. It’s easier calling it simply a story about a character named Arthur Rowe who lives in London during the World War II Blitz of England by the Germans when fate brings him to the attention of a Nazi spy ring. In true noir style, the plot also gives plenty of reasons for fear and angst: Some are generally related to wartime; others come from Arthur Rowe’s personal experience.

The image of the front cover is from the first edition published in England by William Heinemann. The page references in this blog article refer to the edition from the U.S. publisher Viking Press, as noted below.

(This article about the novel The Ministry of Fear contains spoilers about both the novel and the 1944 film noir adaptation.)

I had seen the film noir based on Graham Greene’s novel several times before I read the novel. I usually prefer to read the novel first, but I don’t think it would have mattered either way because I enjoyed both the film, Ministry of Fear starring Ray Milland, and the novel. The novel might be even more noirish, but I count that as a plus.

The story in Ministry of Fear is told from the Arthur Rowe’s perspective. It puts readers in the position of identifying with Rowe, which helps to elicit their sympathy. Fate, one of the defining characteristics of noir, takes over Rowe’s life when he attends a charity fête and visits a fortune-teller. The fortune-teller mistakes his words for a secret password, and she gives him the correct guess to win the cake at the raffle stall. Rowe doesn’t know yet that the cake contains photographs the Nazis want to gain advantage in their war with England. When Rowe refuses to give up the cake and walks home with it, he is now in great danger.

This brief description of the opening of the novel may sound like the film is a close adaptation, but there are lots of differences, large and small, and I will not go into detail about those differences here. (Wikipedia includes a short comparison between the two in its entry for the novel.) Because I read the novel after seeing the film, however, I was struck by one major difference, which I think is the most important difference between the novel and the film: the amount of time that Graham Greene spends explaining Arthur Rowe’s thoughts, attitudes, and mental state.

In the novel, Rowe has already been released from psychiatric incarceration after poisoning his wife. He has been deemed unfit for military service and civilian duty in the war effort, and he is living on a government stipend. Rowe suffers from guilt over killing his wife (the implication is that he didn’t want to see her suffer, but why she was suffering or what illness she might have had is never explained completely), and the guilt seems to have had an effect that reaches far beyond simply his state of mind. The fact that he is declared unfit for military service when England is at war with Germany, that his government doesn’t trust him with a gun when it needed all the soldiers it could find, is another clue about Arthur’s state of mind.

Rowe is drawn irresistibly to the charity fête. But it’s not just fate or coincidence that draws him in. Heading toward it seems to take him back in time, all the way back to childhood:

The fête called him [Arthur Rowe] like innocence. It was entangled in childhood, with vicarage gardens, and girls in white summer frocks, and the smell of herbaceous borders, and security . . . (page 3)

This retreat into childhood is a recurring theme throughout the novel.

At the fête, Rowe visits Mrs. Bellair, the fortune-teller, and then wins the cake that gets him into so much trouble. Rowe meets Willi Hilfe and Anna Hilfe, brother and sister, when he visits the Mothers of Free Nations, the charity that sponsored the fête. He wants to know why the cake is so important that a stranger would come to his apartment looking for it and try to poison him, and part of his plan is to find Mrs. Bellair and ask her directly. Willi Hilfe offers to take him to Mrs. Bellair’s home, where they become uninvited guests at one of her séances. Rowe would rather leave, but he gives in. He meets Dr. Forester at this séance. Dr. Forester runs the second asylum that Rowe visits later in the novel because of amnesia.

Arthur Rowe survives a bomb explosion and suffers from amnesia as a result. This explosion (really an attempt on Rowe’s life) is what brings him to the asylum run by Dr. Forester. His memory comes back ever so slowly and only in fragments. One of the attendants at the asylum, Johns, is the one who explains the term (the Ministry of Fear) that Graham Greene uses for the title:

“The Germans are wonderfully thorough,” Johns said. “They did that in their own country. Card-indexed all the so-called leaders, socialites, diplomats, politicians, labour leaders, priests—and then presented the ultimatum. Everything forgiven and forgotten, or the Public Prosecutor. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d done the same thing over here [in England]. They formed, you know, a kind of Ministry of Fear—with the most efficient under-secretaires. It isn’t only that they get a hold on certain people. It’s the general atmosphere they spread, so that you feel you can’t depend on a soul.” (pages 124–125)

When Rowe is finally aware that the asylum is run by Nazi spies, he makes his way back to London and goes straight to Scotland Yard, where he meets with Detective Prentice. Rowe becomes enthusiastic about the investigation and is happy to cooperate. He is attracted to Anna Hilfe, and he wants to impress her. He still suffers from amnesia, and he has forgotten that many are suffering because of the Nazi spies’ activities. When he and Detective Prentice go back to Dr. Forester’s asylum to pursue the spies and further the investigation, he holds a childlike view on very serious proceedings:

It was a long and gloomy ride, but all the time Rowe repressed for the sake of his companion [Detective Prentice] a sense of exhilaration: he was happily drunk with danger and action This was more like the life he had imagined years ago. He was helping in a great struggle, and when he saw Anna again he could claim to have played a part against her enemies. . . . He didn’t understand suffering because he had forgotten that he had ever suffered. (page 188)

Rowe doesn’t seem to realize yet how serious the situation has become for him and others. At the asylum, Detective Prentice and Arthur Rowe learn that Forester and Poole killed Major Stone, another patient that Rowe had befriended. The doctor’s assistant Johns shot both Dr. Forester and Poole.

At the end of the novel, when Arthur Rowe finds Anna Hilfe again, he finally starts to realize how much recent events in his life have changed him. He finally remembers that he poisoned his wife and killed her, and that Anna fell in love with him when he couldn’t remember. She may be implicated in war crimes as her brother’s partner at Mothers of Free Nations, the charity front for the spy ring. Rowe doesn’t know what Anna has done, and he doesn’t want to ask.

With all the time that Arthur and readers spend inside his head, I wondered at first if Arthur Rowe is a reliable character. Graham Greene tells the story from Rowe’s perspective, but Rowe is not the narrator. The author doesn’t allow readers to doubt Rowe or to be confused by the events relayed in the novel, even though there’s considerable uncertainty about the world Rowe lives in.

Viewers are much more sure of Stephen Neale, the main character in the film adaptation. Arthur Rowe’s dreams and instances of self-doubt are not part of the film, although these elements are common in other films noir. Psychiatric treatment or analysis is not given a large role in the film version: Neale is released from criminal psychiatric confinement after killing his wife, but his release happens at the start and is given only brief mention later in the film.

Click here for my blog article Ministry of Fear, the film that is based on Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear. And yes, the film and novel titles are just a shade different.

Among the many differences between the film and the novel, the biggest one is the amount of time that Graham Greene spends explaining Arthur Rowe’s thoughts, attitudes, and mental state. At the end of the novel, readers are left with Arthur Rowe and his pessimism about his future with Anna Hilfe. Stephen Neale in the film is also reunited with Carla Hilfe (her first name is different in the film), but his future is looking brighter compared to Arthur Rowe’s. Neale even makes a quick joke about cakes at weddings that closes the film.

Graham Greene apparently hated the 1944 film adaptation of his novel because it waters down the novel’s depiction of a man who poisoned his wife and suffers guilt after the murder. Maybe I would hate such a change to my work if I were the author, but I’m not the author and I have the luxury of enjoying the film just as much as the novel.

The Ministry of Fear, by Graham Greene  •  New York: Viking Press, 1943

List of main characters:

Arthur Rowe  •  Mrs. Bellairs, the fortune-teller  •  Mr. Rennit, manager of the Orthotex Detective Agency  •  Jones, employee of Orthotex Detective Agency  •  Willi Hilfe, manager of the Mothers of Free Nations in London  •  Anna Hilfe, manager of the Mothers of Free Nations in London and Willi Hilfe’s sister  •  Dr. Forester, guest at Mrs. Bellair’s séance  •  Mr. Cost, businessman and guest at Mrs. Bellair’s séance  •  Johns, attendant at Dr. Forester’s asylum  •  Major Stone, patient at Dr. Forester’s asylum  •  Detective Prentice at Scotland Yard

Ministry of Fear (1944)

I saw Ministry of Fear several years ago, and I remember enjoying it. I’ve always liked Ray Milland, and he is great in the starring role of Stephen Neale. Dan Duryea, another favorite of mine, plays one of the supporting characters, Cost, who also goes by the name of Travers. Duryea is in only a few sequences in the film, but he is in command every time he is on the screen, and he is a lot of fun to watch.

I was really surprised by the plot when I saw Ministry of Fear again recently. I guess I didn’t remember the story line all that well, but that turned out to be a plus because it was like watching the film for the first time. The twists and turns were one surprise after another, and that’s quite an achievement for any film, let alone one that I have already seen, even if it was several years ago.

At the start of the film, Stephen Neale is released from the Lembridge Asylum, where he was incarcerated after being convicted of the mercy killing of his wife. He wants to go straight to London, even though it is being bombed almost every night by the Germans (it’s the World War II blitz of London and other targets in the United Kingdom). But before he leaves Lembridge, he attends a charity fête hosted by the Mothers of Free Nations. He enters a raffle to guess the weight of a cake, which will be awarded to the person whose guess is the closest to its actual weight—or so it is advertised. Stephen Neale wins the cake based on mistaken identity and happenstance: He visits a fortune-teller at the fair who thinks he is the spy sent to pick up the cake. Neale uses a particular phrase, a set of passwords, in their conversation quite by accident, but it was the code that the spy was supposed to use. The fortune-teller gives Neale the message about the cake’s weight that was meant for Cost (Dan Duryea’s character).

(This article about Ministry of Fear contains spoilers.)

Neale takes the cake and all his belongings on the train for London. He shares his train compartment with a blind man who is interested in the cake and accepts a slice when Neale offers one to him. But the blind man doesn’t taste it; he only squeezes his slice of cake between his fingers. Neale can’t help notice the mess, and his reaction is amusing, but he doesn’t say anything or ask any questions. When an air raid forces the train to stop, the man pounces on the remaining cake and takes off with it into the countryside. Neale chases him, but he has to stop after the man (who was never blind to begin with) spots him and starts shooting. A bomb kills the man and presumably destroys the cake. Neale gives up and returns to the train.

In London, Neale hires a private investigator because of the attempt on his life, and the first place he and the private investigator visit is the home office of the Mothers of Free Nations. Neale is hoping that the charity workers will have some information about the fortune-teller, Mrs. Bellane, that he visited at the charity fête in Lembridge. Willi and Carla Hilfe, the brother and sister running the charity, have no idea who Neale is talking about, but they are willing to help. Neale and Willi Hilfe decide to visit Mrs. Bellane and end up attending a séance. The woman they meet as the host of the séance introduces herself as Mrs. Bellane, but it’s not the same woman who read Neale’s fortune in Lembridge.

Cost, the same man who showed up in Lembridge claiming that he won the cake, is shot and killed at the séance. All the séance attendees accuse Stephen Neale because he was the only one who let go of the hands of his neighbors and broke the circle; that is, he was the only one whose hands were free to use a weapon. After his incarceration in the Lembridge Asylum for the mercy killing of his wife, Neale wants to avoid getting involved with the police again, which proves nearly impossible when he attends the séance. Now he is on the run in London to avoid arrest, and he’s not sure who to trust. It’s hardly the life of peace and quiet he had hoped for after his release from the asylum.

Like Neale, I found myself suspecting almost everyone, and this suspicion starts at the beginning, at the charity fête in Lembridge. When he wins the cake, everyone stops to watch him in silence as he carries it off. Everyone at the séance in London is quick to accuse Neale of a murder that he did not commit. He doesn’t know who to trust and how the cake could be connected to his current situation. Neale has become the target of a Nazi spy ring, but he and viewers have no idea why. Much later in the film, Neale learns that the cake contains microfilm of British embarkation plans, and the Nazi spies will do almost anything to get it back and smuggle it out of England.

It is very hard to keep track of the characters and who knows what. Viewers are put in Stephen Neale’s place. They learn the facts as he does, and thus it is easy to sympathize with him. The fact that he is the target of a Nazi spy ring increases sympathy for Neale. But being the target of a spy ring is a very dangerous business. Neale is knocked unconscious twice, shot at by a man posing as a blind farmer, and nearly killed by a bomb in an exploding suitcase. And we, as viewers, are as confused as he is.

A predicament like the one Neale faces often translates into a convoluted plot. The main character goes from one clue to the next, following the evidence until he or she can put the whole picture together. Add to this a very sophisticated spy ring whose members are trying to avoid detection and keep every other character in the dark, and Neale (and viewers, too) have a very difficult task trying to sort through the evidence. Ministry of Fear thus lends itself to repeat viewings just to get all the details straight, but it’s well worth the effort.

The film has some humorous touches, too. For instance, Stephen Neale finds his first visit to the fortune-teller in Lembridge amusing (he doesn’t know yet what she represents). He’s not a believer in the occult, but he is willing to hear what she has to say and believes their talk is just pleasant banter. Neale offers a piece of cake to the blind man sent after him to recover the cake while on the train to London, but instead of eating it, he smooshes it between his fingers, to Neale’s bafflement. Neale eventually finds Cost in London, but he is really a tailor named Travers with a pair of oversize tailor’s shears that alternates between funny and threatening.

The film is based on a Graham Greene novel, The Ministry of Fear, which I had not read before seeing the film. (Now that I have read it, I plan to write about it next.) Greene apparently hated this film adaptation of his novel because it waters down the novel’s depiction of a man who poisoned his wife and suffers terrible guilt after the murder. To be honest, I don’t think the guilt that the main character suffers in the novel is a very big plot point—in the film or in the novel. The film tells the story economically, but it doesn’t eliminate the murder and the guilt entirely. It does have a Hollywood ending, and that’s the part that I think would have bothered the author more than anything else. The film’s conclusion is quick and humorous, with none of the moral ambiguity that permeates throughout the novel and its conclusion.

The film is such a wonderful story in its own right, however, that I am not sorry I saw it several times before I read the novel, even though I usually prefer reading the novel before seeing its film adaptation. In spite of its ending, the film is a pure noir story of paranoia and desperation, of a man who is perpetually in the wrong place at the wrong time. I want to see it again now that I have read the novel.

December 21, 1944, release date  •  Directed by Fritz Lang  •  Screenplay by Seton I. Miller  •  Based on the novel The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene  •  Music by Victor Young  •  Edited by Archie Marshek  •  Cinematography by Henry Sharp

Ray Milland as Stephen Neale  •  Marjorie Reynolds as Carla Hilfe  •  Carl Esmond as Willi Hilfe/Mr. Macklin  •  Hillary Brooke as Mrs. Bellane #2  •  Percy Waram as Inspector Prentice  •  Dan Duryea as Cost/Travers  •  Alan Napier as Dr. J. M. Forrester  •  Erskine Sanford as George Rennit  •  Mary Field as Martha Panteel  •  Aminta Dyne as Mrs. Bellane #1

Distributed by Paramount Pictures  •  Produced by Paramount Pictures