Review of Dark Passage (1947) by Veronique K — 21 Jan 2008

"dark passage" is another screen team of bogart/bacall in the 40s noir, and this time our convicted hero is a deeply troubled man entrapped in the venom of murderous jealousy.

Bogart plays vincent parry, a man sentenced with life imprisonment for the charge of spouse murder, then he manages to escape san quentine to encounter the aiding hand of beautiful kind irene jason (bacall). somehow to get rid of the bounty hunters of law, he resorts to plastic surgery to gain his second chance of life. there's crooked small-time con who attempts to blackmail him, and eventually parry inquires into the real killer behind these several crimes, a female pal of his who disposes of his wife and best friend then frames him just to sink him into the buttomless abyss without redemption merely becuz parry rejects hers possessive courtship.

Bogart does manifest lots of helpless vulnerability as a wrongly accused man that differentiates from his typical galant shrewd image of man who cannot be made a sucker of. bacall delivers lots of feminine maternal tenderness to bogart that is presumptiously comprehended since it's bogart/bacall despite this scenario of amateur court enthusiast falling for a tarnished con out of pathos is sorta absurd. the man here is not steel-made tough guy who cannot be beated down, contrarily man in the flick needs the caressing care of woman unconditionally. of course, there must be a femme fatale who maliciously incriminates the man into misfortune, agnes moorehead, who behaves simply objectionably hateful without a bit likability, who is a creature of animus, someone who builds her happiness on others' ill-fate. so the female characters are fixed into the angel/demon dualism: bacall is sheer divinity; moorehead is pure evil. bogart's destiny is totally pupeteered and stringed by these two opposite females: one condemns him into hell; one salves him above heaven. maybe the leastly noirish element in it is the abscence of one sensually riveting femme fatale who combines allure and perils together, and "dark passage" compartmentalizes this duplicity without the grey ambiguity of twightlight zone.

One uniquely creativity is bogart's first-person angle complemented with narrations and subjective vision. one flaw is the scene he converses with the taxi driver that is third person perspect. ha.