DARK JOURNEY is a wearisome WWI spy melodrama teaming two wonderful stars, both seen to better advantage in many other films. VIVIEN LEIGH is certainly ready for all of her close-ups but her role is uninteresting even though she's supposed to be a French spy posing as a German spy for the Swiss government.
The plot, as everyone else seems to have said, is confusing and totally lacking the requisite suspense required to keep a viewer tuned in. It gets off to a slow and murky start on the foggy seas and stays slow and murky for too much of its running time.
Surprisingly, CONRAD VEIDT fails to be charismatic as the romantic lead, nor is he as dangerous as he usually is in these sort of movies which comes as a letdown to anyone who admired the Nazis he played in many a war movie. It's probably his least colorful role. Likewise, Vivien Leigh can do very little with her role and reportedly stated that she was disappointed in the script and found it confusing. So did I.
It's all done in veddy British style, circa 1930s, and lacks what might be called the Hitchcock touch. Too bad. Maybe a director of his sort could have made something interesting out of this espionage yarn. Victor Saville fails to give it tension. It has all the suspense of a rubber band about to snap.
It's a yawner. Even Leigh and Veidt (top-billed, by the way), can't save it from sinking.
The plot, as everyone else seems to have said, is confusing and totally lacking the requisite suspense required to keep a viewer tuned in. It gets off to a slow and murky start on the foggy seas and stays slow and murky for too much of its running time.
Surprisingly, CONRAD VEIDT fails to be charismatic as the romantic lead, nor is he as dangerous as he usually is in these sort of movies which comes as a letdown to anyone who admired the Nazis he played in many a war movie. It's probably his least colorful role. Likewise, Vivien Leigh can do very little with her role and reportedly stated that she was disappointed in the script and found it confusing. So did I.
It's all done in veddy British style, circa 1930s, and lacks what might be called the Hitchcock touch. Too bad. Maybe a director of his sort could have made something interesting out of this espionage yarn. Victor Saville fails to give it tension. It has all the suspense of a rubber band about to snap.
It's a yawner. Even Leigh and Veidt (top-billed, by the way), can't save it from sinking.