IMDb > Dark Passage (1947)
Dark Passage
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Dark Passage (1947) More at IMDbPro »

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Dark Passage (1947) -- AllTrailers.net - Trailer (Flash)

Overview

User Rating:
7.5/10   4,913 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 11% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
Delmer Daves (screenplay)
David Goodis (novel)
Contact:
View company contact information for Dark Passage on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
27 September 1947 (USA) more
Tagline:
Two Of A Kind ! Tough . . . Torrid . . . Terrific ! more
Plot:
Bogart plays a man convicted of murdering his wife who escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence... more | full synopsis
User Comments:
Saving Face more (84 total)

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Humphrey Bogart ... Vincent Parry

Lauren Bacall ... Irene Jansen
Bruce Bennett ... Bob

Agnes Moorehead ... Madge Rapf
Tom D'Andrea ... Cabby (Sam)
Clifton Young ... Baker
Douglas Kennedy ... Detective Kennedy
Rory Mallinson ... George Fellsinger
Houseley Stevenson ... Dr. Walter Coley
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Alvin ... Blackie (scenes deleted)
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Additional Details

Runtime:
106 min
Country:
Language:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (RCA Sound System)
Certification:
Argentina:Atp | Germany:16 | Norway:16 | USA:Approved (PCA #12248) | Canada:PG (video rating) | UK:15 (1988) | UK:A (1947) (cut) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Warner Bros. paid $25,000 for the rights to the David Goodis novel, which was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post from 20 July-September 7, 1946. more
Goofs:
Continuity: In the beginning of the movie, part of the canvas over the truck is attached. Next shot it is all free. more
Quotes:
Cabby: Where do you want to go to?
Vincent Parry: Might as well make it the police station.
Cabby: Don't be like that. You're doing alright. You're doing fine.
Vincent Parry: If it was easy for you to spot me, it'd be easy for others.
Cabby: That's where you're wrong. Unless you'd be happier back in Quentin.
Vincent Parry: Yeah... yeah, sure. That's why they sent us up there. To make us happy.
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in The Big Lebowski (1998) more
Soundtrack:
Avalon more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
37 out of 49 people found the following comment useful.
Saving Face, 18 July 2004
Author: Ben_Cheshire from Oz

Bogey is an escaped prisoner. Bacall helps him stay escaped. To maintain his anonymity he has a face-change operation.

It is a gimmick film, but the gimmick doesn't just serve its own purpose - it highlights a theme of faces, and what faces tell you about the person beneath.

You can tell when something is being explored onscreen for the first time - its done more thoroughly and more excitedly than it ever will again. Think back to that first film about the phenomenon of email (Disclosure) or the internet (The Net), or what about the first film exploring chronology-changes (Citizen Kane) or hide-the-protagonist (The Third Man), or the excitement of acting (Streetcar Named Desire). That initial excitement is never really matched again - after that it becomes just another device, or a reference. The thing here is partly first-person narration (this came out the same year as Lady in the Lake), but wholly plastic surgery, the idea of changing your appearance.

First-person narration is actually quite rare in cinema. Lady in the Lake is one of the only examples where they stick with it for an entire picture, resorting to gimmicks like having Robert Montgomery looking in a mirror. Its used to great effect in the first half of Dark Passage, in order to hide Bogart's face. It was partly mechanical. Its a face-change movie. Instead of starting with Bogart and changing his face to a different actor, they wanted to pretend he looked like a different person (which we only see in a few photographs), and then after the operation he just looks like Bogart. But what the device of hiding his face does is create suspense, and focus on the issue of faces, which is a recurring theme throughout.

And it works to the positive for this film: what's the best way to hide someone's face? Put us behind their eyes! You never see your own face unless you're looking in the mirror. So until his operation, we see through Bogey's eyes - and the result is quite cinematic. It really frees up the movie, unshackling it from the static trappings of most studio pictures of this era. Instead of us just looking on from the edge of a set, which ends up looking like a stage, we're really taken into the action - its marvellous!

And, to save the best till last - Bacall absolutely burns up the screen in this. She sets the celluloid on fire. Any single shot of her in this movie is magic. Just being onscreen and being magic, its the definition of the X-factor.

9/10. What a star-vehicle for Bogey. This was his Third Man. And Bacall is sensational!

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Dark Passage Locations RhondaFlemingFan
Something has always bothered me about this film mryerson
Irene's Apartment RhondaFlemingFan
'the loneliness of waiting for a bus' pathfinder616
Newspaper photo of Vincent Parry cldistefano
voice of man in street greggbernstein
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