Art Vandelay Not sure I can recall a movie with more plot contrivances, or weak attempts to explain them away. How can you get invested when your intelligence is being insulted in every scene. Admittedly, the POV camera is a lot less irritating than in Lady of the Lake. It helps that we're either enjoying some fine supporting performances or gawking at Lauren Bacall. By the way, the POV camera on Bacall during the dinner scene allowed me to take a good long look at her eyebrows. They don't match her actual eyebrow line. They have a painted-on arch like a character in the 1960s Batman TV series. But goodness she was beautiful. This is a snoozefest, though. Who puts Bogey in a movie, only to have him invisible for 45 minutes and a head-bandaged mute for another 20? Maybe one of the most incomprehensible decisions in movie-making's Golden Era. I'd liken it to the Edsel and New Coke.

thejcowboy22 My initiation into the film Noir genre of the late 40's and 50's. This movie starts out in an idiosyncratic angle as we follow through the eyes of escaped convict Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart). Parry's eyes are the camera's eyes through the first hour of the picture. At that time the studio was under scrutiny for gambling on this unique method but in my opinion I applaud the effort despite weak receipts at the box office at the time of the films release. That was the hook that kept me interested in the picture in the first place and would the director continue the entire movie through Bogart's eyes? Back to our story. Vincent Parry was found guilty of murdering his wife. Somehow escapes from jail and hitches a ride from a nebbish type man called Baker (Clifton Young). As they converse Baker notices that he's an escapee and Parry punches him unconscious.Parry takes off and luckily meets up with co-star/Wife Lauren Bacall as artist and newspaper clipping investigator Irene Jansen. Hides in the back of her station wagon under art supplies as the two set out for San Francisco. Parry is in search for the real killer and wants to claim his innocence. Meets up with an over friendly and sympathetic cab driver as Parry confesses his dilemma to the attentive cabbie (Tom D'Andrea). The Cabby suggests he meet with his unlicensed friend Dr. Coley (Houseley Stevenson) who is a plastic surgeon. I also enjoyed the dialogue between Parry and the irregular practitioner just before Parry goes under the knife. Our antagonist/ meddler who fears meeting up with the escaped convict is Madge Rapf played by veteran actor Agnes Moorehead. Honorable mentions to the following in the films production. Director Delmar Daves letting the player spill their lines with such a natural style and applause for the cinematographer Sidney Hickox for the first person images through the eyes of the film's protagonist This movie was not well received by true Bogie/Bacall fans but for some strange reason I like this movie. Maybe the characters or the off beat plastic surgery twist held my attention span. The San Francisco back drop was always a favorite of mine in some classic movies of yesteryear. Maybe it's something more like the chemistry Bogie and Bacall capture in all four of their movies together. The integrity when Bogie professes his feelings for Bacall, he really means it. In addition Bacall sympathetic style toward Bogie was so instinctive and their dialogue for the most part was visceral. Two Birds of the same feather doing a movie together that's the appeal! To marvelous for words!

lasttimeisaw A star vehicle for Bogart and Bacall, the third among their total four collaborations, DARK PASSAGE is produced in the apex of film-noir fad, Bogart plays Vincent Parry, a convict who has been accused of murdering his wife, is bent on finding the real killer after stowing away on a supply truck out of San Quentin prison in the opening scenes. A conspicuous gambit is from the word go, directer Delmer Daves has been obstinately taking a first-person perspective of the narrative, accompanied by Bogart's voice-over narrating his inner thoughts, but never puts Vincent's visage in front of the camera, not until well over an hour into the movie, would we see Bogart's weather-beaten face for the first time, simply because, before that point, Vincent doesn't have a face like Bogart's! It is a novel move to tap into the facing-changing gimmick, although the film ineptly takes oceanic artistic license to justify/simplify the whole enterprise, from the Good Samaritan cabbie ( D'Andrea), surely is a chatty loner, who implausibly proposes the idea to Vincent after recognizing him, a wife-murder on the lam, not even for a monetary gain, to a shaggy-dog looking doctor (Stevenson)'s seemingly dubious business, until the pitch-perfect debut of a brand new face without any traceable marks left (an in-joke is to make Vincent look older than his real age, at the expense of Bogart's senescent bearing and his May-December marriage with Bacall), it might be able to pull the wool over the eyes of audience at that time, but viewed as this day, unintentionally it looks more like droll derision to the orthopaedic progression than anything scintillating. Flimsy on reasoning and far-fetched in pigeonholing a grand scheme into a meagre group of players (perusing the not-so-long cast list, a film connoisseur could winnow out who would be most adequate to assume the role of final revelation without any trouble), in fact, the film's whodunit convolution undeservedly concedes the spotlight to the mawkish romance between Vincent and Irene Jansen (Bacall), that's the selling point! The latter, a strong-willed rich gal, incorrigibly falls for a presumed wife-murderer, her undoubted certitude of the former's innocence is thinly based on preconceived notion and if taking out of the context of the two stars' personal intimacy, their liaison doesn't make sense in either way, but as usual, the girl's motivation bears the brunt of character underdevelopment, since Bogart's Vincent at least evokes a dew-eyed veneer of passivity in all the pandemonium which can allure those soft-hearted.On the plus side, Ms. Moorehead is fiercely catty and menacing to a fault, Daves makes impressive uses of San Francisco's film-genic topography and its art deco trimmings, together with DP Sidney Hickox's sharply expressive deep-focus shots, on top of a cock and bull escapist tale tempered by a soupçon of schmaltz and a big chunk of wishfulness.

frankwiener I knew from the very start that I would love this film, ably directed by Delmer Daves and based on the original novel by David Goodis with a very strong musical score by Franz Waxman. I enjoyed the movie so much that I was willing to overlook the plot holes that have been identified by other reviewers.What about those alleged plot holes? Considering Irene Jansen's (Lauren Bacall's) fixation with Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart), couldn't she have satisfied her need to be physically close to him by finding inspiration to paint in the hills that surrounded San Quentin while he was imprisoned there? And was her friendship to the villainous Madge Rapf (Agnes Moorhead) far too coincidental, or could she have sought out Madge's companionship from all of the other phony socialites in San Francisco only for the purpose of retribution against Madge after she helped to convict the innocent Parry for the murder of his wife? I haven't yet read the book, but perhaps it fills the holes better than the screenplay did.Plot holes aside, I knew that I would love this movie from the moment that the barrel started swaying precariously from the back of the prison truck while the sirens of San Quentin blasted throughout the surrounding California countryside. Next I am suddenly spinning down the mountain in the dark barrel with escapee Vincent. For the first thirty minutes of the movie, I only see the action in first person point of view as Parry experiences it and narrates it.From the very start, this movie never disappoints. At every moment, there is an unexpected turn of events and the introduction of a new and unique character. There are so many fascinating and quirky elements, including personalities both large and small, that I don't know where to begin, so I'll start with the wonderful, dramatic score of Franz Waxman, prominently showcasing the classic Mercer-Whiting song of the era, "Too Marvelous for Words". Who can deliver us to the world of 1947 more authentically than icon Jo Stafford as she sings what would soon become Vincent's and Irene's very appealing theme song?Clifton Young perfectly plays Baker, the very disagreeable, small-town crook and blackmailing weasel, who drives a jalopy that can't do more than 40 mph with seat cushions made from a circus tent. As we learn more about baker, we share Vincent's desire to "crack open his head full of figures" and even worse than that.Next we embark on a very tense drive through a police dragnet from one end of the Golden Gate Bridge to the other, established specifically to capture the escaped Vincent, with Irene nervously behind the wheel and the ex-con Vincent hidden in the back of her station wagon among fresh oil paintings. "Be careful not to get paint on your sleeve, officer," she warns before he rummages through her precious cargo, and he heeds her advice. Then, the cop at the tollbooth turns out to be none other than Vince Edwards, who played Dr. Ben Casey in the very popular 1960's television drama. Once Irene and Vincent successfully dodge the police checkpoints, we are invited into Irene's art deco building somewhere in the hills of San Francisco with its glass elevator and avant-garde, elaborately etched glass walls that lead to an apartment with a sexy, spiral staircase that climbs to her very private bedroom. Tom d'Andrea as Sam, the gregarious and goodhearted cab driver, is another valuable asset to the film, as is the menacing presence of Housely Stevenson, who plays Dr. Coley, Vincent's plastic surgeon. Is the doctor the fiend that Vincent imagines him to be during an unforgettable nightmare episode that immediately reminds me of my own anxious moments when I was once prepped for a major, real-life operation? "Got the money?" the doctor asks ominously before he proceeds. No need for a health insurance card here.Agnes Moorehead is genuinely detestable as Madge Rapf, whose disagreeable name matches her grating personality. The intensity of Madge's and Vincent's eventual encounter at her apartment is another dramatic turning point, thanks to the efforts of not one but two of the best professionals in the business, Bogart and Moorehead, head to head with an excellent script that is worthy of them. Madge's "moment of truth" during their gripping verbal exchange, and her sudden exit from the scene are not to be missed. Could those shoes sailing through the bay breeze possibly be bright orange too? In the end, the movie's constant state of suspense and uncertainty finally settles into a very serene and soothing scene that, in my humble opinion, conveys unlike any other the love that Bogey and Bacall felt for each other in real life. Too marvelous for words.