The Journey (1959 film)

The Journey
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Anatole Litvak
Produced by	Anatole Litvak
Written by	George Tabori
Starring	Deborah Kerr Yul Brynner Jason Robards
Music by	Georges Auric
Cinematography	Jack Hildyard
Edited by	Dorothy Spencer
Production company	Alby Pictures
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	February 19, 1959
Running time	122-126 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2,290,000
Box office	$3,450,000

The Journey is a 1959 American drama film directed by Anatole Litvak. A group of Westerners tries to flee Hungary after the Soviet Union moves to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. It stars Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, Jason Robards and Robert Morley. Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner were paired again since they starred in The King and I in 1956, where he had an Oscar-winning performance. The Journey was shot in Metrocolor.

In 1956 a group of passengers stranded for days at Budapest airport by the Hungarian uprising are taken in a bus towards the frontier with neutral Austria. A sick man in the back seat, who claims to be an Englishman called Flemyng, seems to be known to an aristocratic Englishwoman in the front seat called Lady Ashmore. The journey is difficult with diversions and roadblocks, some manned by Soviet troops and some by Hungarian insurgents. At a little town near the border, the passengers are taken off the bus by Major Surov, the local Russian commander. After questioning them and impounding their passports, he orders them to remain in the only hotel. He suspects that the passport of Flemyng, whose condition is worsening, is not genuine and he has also developed a strong interest in the attractive Lady Ashmore.

It emerges that Flemyng is in fact a Hungarian insurgent who Lady Ashmore, his lover, is trying to smuggle to safety. Surov deduces both facts but does not act, hoping that Lady Ashmore will offer herself to him in exchange for a passage across the frontier. Speaking good English, he uses the passengers trapped in the hotel as a sounding board for his views, arguing that Russians are human too and questioning the wisdom of imposing Marxism by military force. However, with Flemyng getting weaker from what is revealed to be an untreated gunshot wound, Lady Ashmore bribes a fisherman to take the two of them across the lake to Austria by night. Surov deduces what is happening and captures them both. Getting Flemyng treated by an army doctor, he sends Lady Ashmore back to the hotel. The other passengers are furious that she has jeopardised their release by her selfish behaviour and an American woman tells her very frankly what she can do to save them all.