Dark Passage (1947)

Note des utilisateurs:

7.5/10   

Réalisateur:

Delmer Daves

Writers:

Delmer Daves (screenplay)
David Goodis (novel)

Release Date:

27 septembre 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Thriller

Accroche:

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

Avis des utilisateurs:

Saving Face

Ensemble

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

Autre(s) titre(s):

Les passagers de la nuit (Belgium: French title) (France) [fr]

Durée:

106 min

Pays:

USA

Langue:

Anglais

Couleur:

Noir et Blanc

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Son:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Classification:

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

Emplacements De Pelliculage:

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

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Anecdotes:

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:

Anachronisms: Vincent Parry wore his bandages on his face for over two weeks but only had about two days of beard growth. The human male bread would grow about 3/4 to a inch in over two weeks on average for a man like Parry.

Guillemet:

Baker: I learned some things that even I never knew before.

Movie Connections:

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

Soundtrack:

Avalon

Saving Face

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!