Review of Dark Passage (1947) by Dave H — 24 Nov 2013
"Dark Passage"...snigger, get it, hehehe. OK, so you can tell by even the title its a really old movie. They've never use that these days for anything but porn. But this 1946 noirish thriller is seldom less than interesting.
The best parts are the first person POV of literally the entire first half of the film, you don't actually see the leading man's face - and remember how huge Bogie was back then. Imagine hiring Tom Hanks these days and keeping his face hidden for half the film.
Don't see it happening (unless we're talking Toy Story of course). But the conceit is not only pulled off technically brilliantly in Dark Passage, it matches the plot perfectly, and all the while we've got Bogie hard-bitten voiceover leading us along anyway.
In fact, the second half, when we actually SEE Bogie's wrinkly mug, isn't quite as interesting as the first, as the plot struggles to tie things together with some hard-to-swallow stretches of character motivation.
And Bogie seems tired in these bits, whereas Bacall is luminous through. But she's not the star of the film, and neither is Bogie, really. No, the star is 1940s San Francisco - it's is awesome to see how much has changed, and especially how much hasn't.
Definitely the highlight of this always interesting, but never quite compelling, film.
This review of Dark Passage (1947) was written by Dave H on 24 Nov 2013.
Dark Passage has generally received positive reviews.
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