Les Passagers de la nuit

Sadly, or perhaps not, most condemned prisoners do not have a dame, a dude, and a plastic surgeon around to break their falls when they escape. But when Bogart busts out of the big house, San Quentin, the Good Samaritans start popping up like dandelions. His method of escape is to throw himself down a steep incline in a steel barrel. The cameraman rides tandem and becomes his eyes and point-of-view. Bogart hitches a ride with a nosy fellow I've seen before in the movies. He has deep-set eyes and a divot in his chin. Bogart quickly dispatches the mug to dreamland and ventures out into an uncertain landscape of creeps and coppers. Instead, Bogart catches a break: he discovers he has a groupie played by Lauren Bacall. She is out painting landscapes when she hears the bulletin over the radio. She knows everything about his case. She even sat in the courtroom during his trial. She felt he got a raw deal. The dude he meets is a close friend who plays the horn. He allows Bogart safe haven to rest. Incredibly, Bogart steps into the cab of yet another sympathetic character. The cabbie guides him to a doctor who wields a wild scalpel. Bogart's ex-flame also knows Bacall--and is a royal pain in the neck. The coincidences pile up higher than The Golden Gate Bridge. Bogie and Bacall may have more well known films on their resumes, but this one will keep a big fat smile on your face.

While the least-known and, really, the least impressive of the Bogart/Bacall features, this is still a solid, if rather offbeat, movie that combines a film-noir atmosphere with a gimmick that is meant to drive most of the story. The gimmick works moderately well, though it is really just a diverting sideline to the main drama and acting, which are what really make the movie work.

The premise is interesting enough, at least for a while, and it is interesting to see just how long they can go without showing the face of Bogart's character. They might have stretched it out just a bit too long, since there is more than enough in the rest of the plot to make any further use of the device unnecessary. Bacall and Bogart work together well from the beginning. In itself, the pairing works almost as well here as in their three better-known movies together - it's just that here there is a less for them to work with.

The two stars do get plenty of help from Agnes Moorehead, who plays her role with relish. Tom D'Andrea and Bruce Bennett help out when they get the chance. Delmer Daves also creates a generally believable atmosphere to serve as the background to the story, and to help get it past the less plausible stretches. Overall, while hardly up to the high standard of the other Bogart/Bacall pairings, "Dark Passage" is a solid if unspectacular feature that is worth seeing if you like the stars and/or the genre.

Bogart's third teaming with Lauren Bacall was in "Dark Passage," a murder-mystery film which depended upon contrivances rather than good scripting to see it through…

The film opened with the use of a subjective camera (MGM used it throughout their "Lady in the Lake" that same year) with Bogart's off-camera narration establishing the plot as we watch our hero escape from prison with the intent of finding the real murderer of his wife, the crime for which he had been wrongfully jailed…

Once he meets up with Bacall and goes to a plastic surgeon, the subjective camera is forgotten as Bogart now utilizes his own face and carries on the investigation…

"Dark Passage" was energetically directed and written by Delmer Daves who used some atmospheric location shots in San Francisco to underscore his drama… The film included an unusual number of bizarre and eccentric characters, all competently played…

Agnes Moorehead essayed a superb1y schizoid characterization as a bitchy "friend" of Bogart and his dead wife… Bacall showed definite signs of improvement in her acting and Bogart was properly bitter, sour and nonplussed…

For all practical purposes, this film marked the conclusion of Bogart's famous "image" period… Now he was to forsake his romantic leading-man roles for acting assignments which he hoped would raise him to greater heights as a performer… He was to succeed, in many cases, magnificently

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!

"Dark Passage" offers a different take on the San Francisco noir genre. This is a movie in which we get to know about the story that unfolds in front of us told in narrative style by the hero, who is never seen until about one hour into the picture. Delmer Daves, adapting the David Goodis novel has created something seldom seen in this type of films, in which, the hero's presence is required at all times.

The film has a great style, as it offers a view of the San Francisco of the 1940s in ways that hadn't been seen before. The director was lucky to be able to open up the book in excellent ways to keep the viewer hooked from the start. The 'moderne' style of that era is seen in glorious detail, especially Irene's apartment, where much of the action takes place. The effect of the glassed enclosed elevator makes a dramatic contribution to the look of this movie.

The story of an innocent man, falsely condemned to prison for killing his own wife, parallels other movies. What's unusual here is that the presence of this convict is seen in another light with his own slant in to what really happened to the dead woman. There are other elements in the film that make it appealing. as the relationship between the escaped man, Vincent Parry, and the woman who rescues him, Irene Jansen.

Sidney Hickox's stylish cinematography is one of the best assets of the film. The crisp images that one sees of the city, or the surrounding areas, add to the enjoyment of watching the mystery unfold. The mood is set by the swing music of the time as Frank Waxman's score is heard. Richard Whiting contributes the great song one hears in the background.

The film is dominated by Humphrey Bogart, which says a lot about his power as an actor, and as a personality. When one considers he is actually not seen completely until after an hour into the movie, it speaks volumes of how the actor and the director were able to pull it through. The Irene Jansen of Lauren Bacall is another of the things that work in the film. Ms. Bacall's radiant beauty dominates every scene she is in. This actress had such a style that no matter what she is doing, she pulls our attention to her. The camera loved Ms. Bacall.

The other best thing going for the film is the strong performances Mr. Daves has obtained from his cast. Agnes Moorehead makes a phenomenal appearance as the evil Madge Rapf. Her last scene with Mr. Bogart stands as one of the best moments in a film noir of the era. Ms. Moorehead's expressions as she is confronted with the facts, keep on changing as she absorbs everything being thrown at her. Clifton Young who plays Baker, the opportunistic would be criminal, is also effective, as he adds a layer of intrigue with an angle we didn't figure out existed. His fight with Parry at the bottom of the Golden Gate bridge is beautifully choreographed. Finally, the kind cab driver Sam, who helps Parry assume a new identity, as played by Tom D'Andrea is one of the highlights of the film, as well as the plastic surgeon, portrayed by Houseley Stevenson.

This film, while not perfect, shows how well Delmer Dave's gamble paid in his conception for the film.