Journey, The (1959) - full review!
Produced & directed by Anatole Litvak, and written by George Tabori, this unique Cold War drama is difficult to describe. There is a romance element to it which doesn't quite work, though the motivations for Yul Brynner's interest in Deborah Kerr's character are clear: he's been away from home too long. That plot-line notwithstanding, there is a very real feel given for the time and place, Russian occupied Hungary in 1956, that gives the film a certain truth which makes it hard to quit watching once one has become engaged in it. Unforunately, the story drags on for at least 20 minutes too long. The film marks the only other pairing of these actors besides The King and I (1956).
A group of foreigner have found themselves unable to fly out of Budapest because of the political situation, hence they are trapped and given no choice besides the promised passage by the occupying Russian forces. They are put on a bus ostensibly headed for Vienna, but they are detained just short of their destination by a Major Surov (Brynner), who wants to make sure no natives are escaping amidst the group. Robert Morley, playing a British television journalist, serves as the defacto spokesman for the tourists which include an old acquaintance of his, Lady Diana Ashmore (Kerr). Ashmore is in fact smuggling an Hungarian friend of hers, traveling as American Paul Fleming (Jason Robards Jr., in his film debut) but fooling no one for long, out of the country. She feels she owes a debt to him because, through a complicated series of events, he was held prisoner and tortured by the Russians in part due to his association with her years previously. An American family which includes E.G. Marshall, Anne Jackson, and their two sons (one of which is played by a four year old Ron Howard in his first credited role) is among the twelve others being detained by the Major.
The drama begins when, for reasons that are not explained right away, Major Surov decides not to send the foreigners passports to headquarters. That would be the usual procedure which would have allowed these travelers the most expeditious way out of Hungary. But Surov, having been in charge of this border town for 2 years, is lonely for human conversation, perhaps even more. He is quickly frustrated when his "guests", led by a judicious Morley, are unwilling to engage him in adult discourse, and instead act like apolitical, humble prisoners. The fact that Fleming can't present himself for meals, he'd been injured in his escape, and that it's Lady Ashmore that seems to care for him, also intrigues the Major. It later becomes clear that Surov was immediately taken with/smitten by Diana such that his subsequent decision making was/is hindered by his (unrequited?) attraction to her. When the Major seems to have figured out that Fleming is not who he appears to be, Diana makes a fateful decision of her own which leads to an escape attempt and more.
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