Ministry of Fear is a 1944 film noir directed by Fritz Lang. Based on a novel by Graham Greene, the film tells the story of a man just released from a mental asylum who finds himself caught up in an international spy ring in London during the Blitz, pursued by foreign agents and incriminated for murder; all as a result of having visited a village fair and winning a cake after being given its weight by a fortune teller. The original music for the film was composed by Miklós Rózsa and Victor Young.

In wartime England during the Blitz, Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) is released from Lembridge Asylum. While waiting for a train to London, Neale visits a village fête hosted by the Mothers of Free Nations charity. He guesses the weight of a cake for a shilling, and is urged to go to the palm reader's tent to have his fortune told by Mrs. Bellane (Aminta Dyne), an older woman. He asks her to ignore the past and tell the future, which startles her. She cryptically tells him to take another guess at the weight of the cake at 4 pounds, 15 1/2 ounces. Neale does so and wins the prize. Then a young blond man hurries to the fête to see Mrs. Bellane. Afterward, people try to persuade Neale to give the cake to the blond man, but he refuses.

Ray Milland (3 January 1907 – 10 March 1986) was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend (1945), a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind (1942), the murder-plotting husband in Dial M for Murder (1954), and as Oliver Barrett III in Love Story (1970).

Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones (not Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones as has often been stated). His birth was registered in the March Quarter of 1907 in Neath, Wales, and he was the son of Elizabeth Annie (née Truscott) and Alfred Jones. In the 1911 census the family were living at 66 Coronation Road, Mount Pleasant, Neath, Wales. Of his parents, Milland wrote in his 1974 autobiography Wide-Eyed in Babylon, "My father was not a cruel or harsh man. Just a very quiet one. I think he was an incurable romantic and consequently a little afraid of his emotions and perhaps ashamed of them... he had been a young hussar in the Boer War and had been present at the relief of Mafeking. He never held long conversations with anyone, except perhaps with me, possibly because I was the only other male in our family. The household consisted of my mother, a rather flighty and coquettish woman much concerned with propriety and what the neighbours thought.."

Vicious Rumors is an American power metal band founded in 1979 in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

The brainchild of Geoff Thorpe, the band has been active on the metal scene since its inception in 1979. Vicious Rumors is recognized for their guitar works and harmonies, as well as the variety of their tracks.

Band leader Thorpe also sat in on sessions alongside veteran British session guitarist Martin Pugh (of Steamhammer, the 1st Rod Stewart solo album, and Armageddon) and drummer Tim Kelliher (of Randy Hansen's Machine Gun) for American rock & roll band 7th Order on their debut CD, The Lake of Memory - released in 2007.

The only member in every Vicious Rumors line-up is the guitarist, leader and main composer: Geoff Thorpe

The band, without a definite line-up, (between 1982 and 1985) appeared on the compilations: KMEL's "New Oasis", U.S. Metal vol. III and U.S. Metal vol. IV.

The first album Soldiers of the Night, published in 1985 by Shrapnel records, features (together with Geoff Thorpe): Larry Howe (drums), Dave Starr (bass), Gary St.Pierre (voice) and Vinnie Moore (guitar). Vinnie Moore was suggested by Shrapnel's mastermind Mike Varney.