Dark Passage

With the possible exception of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, Bogie and Bacall are the romantic pair most associated with the film noir cycle, their presence in a film like comfort food for noir fans. Sandwiched in between 1946’s The Big Sleep and 1948’s Key Largo, Delmer Daves’ Dark Passage stars the duo as Vincent Parry, a prisoner framed for murdering his wife, and Irene Jansen, who aids him in his escape from San Quentin and helps him track down his wife’s actual murderer to clear his name. Borrowing the subjective camera technique from Robert Montgomery’s Lady in the Lake (1947), Daves cleverly films the first act from Parry’s point of view so we never get a look at his face until he later unwraps plastic surgery bandages and reveals his “new” Bogart identity. As part of his fugitive investigation, Parry pays visits to former girlfriend Madge (a deliciously spiteful Agnes Moorehead), her ex-fiancé Bob (Bruce Bennett), blackmailer Baker (Clifton Young), and Parry’s best friend George Fellsinger (Rory Mallison) who turns up dead, threatening Parry with another false murder rap. Replete with plenty of creative cinematography and a few downright creepy shots, particularly those featuring Bogart’s bandaged face, the film packs in the tension through, for example, Parry’s tussle with the driver who picks him up, the underground plastic surgery encounter, and a kaleidoscopic, anesthesia-induced dream sequence. Just for fun: Dark Passage is the only film noir that offers a stock tip; viewers in 1947 who heeded Parry’s advice to buy AT&T shares would be sitting on a mountain of money today.