Dark Passage (1947)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Delmer Daves

Writers:

Delmer Daves (screenplay)
David Goodis (novel)

Release Date:

27 September 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Thriller

Tagline:

Two Of A Kind ! Tough . . . Torrid . . . Terrific !

Plot:

Bogart plays a man convicted of murdering his wife who escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence...

Plot Keywords:

Escape From Prison | Plastic Surgery | First Person Camera | Police | Peru

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
Rory Mallinson	...	George Fellsinger
Houseley Stevenson	...	Dr. Walter Coley

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

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

Filming Locations:

Filbert Steps, Filbert Street, San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Franz Waxman's main title music for this movie is exactly the same as that used in To Have and Have Not (1944), for which he was uncredited.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Vincent Parry is holding the gun on Bake beneath the Golden Gate bridge near the end of the movie, Baker's hands are alternately open/closed between shots.

Quotes:

[Vincent meets a discredited plastic surgeon]
Dr. Walter Coley: Ever see any botched plastic jobs? If a man like me didn't like a fellow... he could surely fix him up for life. Make him look like a bulldog, or a monkey. I'll make you look as if you've lived.
Vincent Parry: I have, doc.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Best of Film Noir (1999) (V)

Soundtrack:

Avalon

Fascinating film noir

Wow, we are really asked to believe a lot in this film. Typically movies can only get away with one or two unlikely plot elements, but somehow I still enjoyed 'Dark Passage' despite numerous key elements' implausibility.

The film opens to a shot of convicted felon Parry (Bogart) in a barrel in back of a truck headed down the road. He shakes the barrel, takes a nasty roll and staggers out. It's just the first of many doubt-inducing sequences.

The film, with its plot problems aside, is really an excellent film noir study. We are taken through most of the first half of the film from the first-person Parry (Bogart) view. I found this fascinating, despite wooden dialogue and continuous unrealistic steadiness of the camera. I think the base story of 'Dark Passage' is superb, with all its film noir elements. I especially like the first-person view, which then transforms through a surrealistic imagery scene of plastic surgery, into the normal third-person view.

One plot element I particularly take issue with is that, although Parry gets a new face, we are asked to believe that his distinctive Bogart voice cannot be recognised by the closest of his acquaintances. He makes no effort whatsoever to account for this, and this is given no thought in the slightest.

The film is one I would personally love to make - I would like to direct the thing myself, and revise the script a bit, make it more real in dialogue and plot primarily. This is a feeling I've not oft encountered, because I've almost always felt a director has done, even when he presents a wrong point of view, a better job than I could do. Due to my love for the story here I was torn - torn I tell you - in my selection of a vote for this film, but arrived at 7. I took off for the unrealistic factors, but made sure to preserve the respectability of the film. It is, incontestably, a classic - and in my opinion, just because a film is old doesn't mean it is. I respect this film.