Dark Passage (film)

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Dark Passage

DVD Cover
Directed by Delmer Daves
Produced by Jerry Wald
Written by Story:
David Goodis
Screenplay:
Delmer Daves
Starring Humphrey Bogart
Lauren Bacall
Agnes Moorehead
Music by Franz Waxman
Cinematography Sidney Hickox
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) September 5, 1947
(U.S.A.)
Running time 106 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Dark Passage (1947) is a Warner Bros. film noir directed by Delmer Daves and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The film is based on the novel of the same name by David Goodis. It was the third of four films real-life couple Bacall and Bogart made together.[1]

Contents

[edit] Plot

Convicted murderer Vincent Parry (Bogart) escapes from San Quentin prison and is picked up and sheltered by Irene Jansen (Bacall), an artist with an interest in his case.

Helped by a friendly cabbie, Sam (Tom D'Andrea), Parry gets a new face from a plastic surgeon thereby enabling him to dodge the authorities and find his wife's real murderer.

He has difficulty staying hidden at Irene's because Madge Rapf (Agnes Moorehead), the spiteful woman whose testimony sent him up to prison, keeps stopping by and a blackmailer named Baker tries to extort money from Irene. The film's climax features the killer realizing the true identity of the man behind the face.

[edit] Background

Robert Montgomery had released the film Lady in the Lake a year earlier, and it was the first major film that used the "subjective camera technique" in which the viewer sees the action through the protagonist's eyes. Yet, film critic Hal Erikson believes Dark Passage does a better job at using this point-of-view technique, writing, "The first hour or so of Dark Passage does the same thing--and the results are far more successful than anything seen in Montgomery's film."[2]

Franz Waxman's main title music for this movie is the same theme used in To Have and Have Not (1944).

Parts of the movie were filmed on location in San Francisco, California, including the cable car system. An error in the film has Bogart getting on an O'Farrell, Jones, and Hyde cable car but leaving a Powell Street car at Market Street, a trip which was not possible until ten years later when the two lines were combined into the Powell–Hyde line.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Critical reception

Film critic Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review and was not impressed by Bogart's performance but was by Bacall's work. He wrote, "When [Bogart] finally does come before the camera, he seems uncommonly chastened and reserved, a state in which Mr. Bogart does not appear at his theatrical best. However, the mood of his performance is compensated somewhat by that of Miss Bacall, who generates quite a lot of pressure as a sharp-eyed, knows-what-she-wants girl." He made the case that the best part of the film is "[t]he city of San Francisco, which is liberally and vividly employed as the realistic setting for the Warners' Dark Passage...For Writer-Director Delmar Daves has very smartly and effectively used the picturesque streets of that city and its stunning panoramas from the hills to give a dramatic backdrop to his rather incredible yarn. So, even though bored by the story—which, because of its sag, you may be—you can usually enjoy the scenery, which is as good as a travelogue."[3]

Currently, the film has a 100% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on eleven reviews.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Dark Passage at the Internet Movie Database.
  2. ^ Erikson, Hal. {{amg movie|id=1:12258|title=Dark Passage}.
  3. ^ Crowther, Bosley. The New York Times, film review, September 6, 1947. Last accessed: December 21, 2007.
  4. ^ Dark Passage at Rotten Tomatoes. Last accessed: December 21, 2007.

[edit] External links

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