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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	Sid Hickox
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	September 5, 1947 (U.S.A.)
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
All Movie Guide 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 novel by David Goodis. It was the third of four films real-life couple Bacall and Bogart made together.

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.

The film Lady in the Lake released a year earlier, was the first film that used the "subjective camera technique" in which the viewer sees the action through Bogart'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."^[1]

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

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.

• Humphrey Bogart as Vincent Parry
• Lauren Bacall as Irene Jansen
• Bruce Bennett as Bob
• Agnes Moorehead as Madge Rapf
• Tom D'Andrea as Cabby (Sam)
• Clifton Young as Jalopy driver / Blackmailer
• Douglas Kennedy as Detective arresting Parry in diner
• Rory Mallinson as George Fellsinger
• Houseley Stevenson as Dr. Coley, Plastic surgeon

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."^[2]

Currently, the film has a 100% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on eleven reviews.^[3]

• Dark Passage (film) at the Internet Movie Database.
• Dark Passage (film) at All Movie Guide.
• Dark Passage at Film Noir of the Week.
• Dark Passage trailer at Spike TV (iFilm)

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