Dark Passage [Region 2] | ![Dark Passage [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HH3MZ0XZL._SL500_.jpg) | Directors: Delmer Daves, Raoul Walsh
Actors: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy
Category: DVD
This item is no longer available
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 296795
Format: PAL
Languages: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), Italian (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), Arabic (Subtitled), Dutch (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), German (Subtitled), Italian (Subtitled), Romanian (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Region: 2
Discs: 3
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.7 x 1.4
EAN: 7321900659703
ASIN: B000127M4E
Theatrical Release Date: September 27, 1947
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| Customer Reviews:
Bogart and Bacall in an unsatisfying mystery, with Agnes Moorehead taking them all on November 24, 2006
C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA)
This is a movie which probably should have remained a book. For a Humphrey Bogart vehicle, it also has one fatal flaw. Bogart's voice was as distinctive as his face. It was impossible for me to disassociate the image of his face in my mind while I heard his voice during the first hour of the movie. Even after I finally realized that the faceless Vincent Parry would emerge from the bandages as Bogart, it made no difference. Seeing the real Parry's face in the newspaper 30 minutes into the movie didn't help. Parry's page-one photo was of a middle-aged, square-jawed, pencil-mustached man who could have been an unsuccessful insurance salesman. Pitching that face against Bogart's voice was jarring.
Several other flaws drain a lot of energy from the movie. The coincidences undermine the story in a major way. There is a lot of narrative exposition. In other words, too much talk. The personal and romantic relationships among the characters, living and dead, is too complicated. There is no mystery; the killer is identified by just about everyone early in the story. The ending may be technically a happy one, but for an innocent man it seems unsatisfying.
At another level, a Bogart movie with only his eyes for us to look at for a while is not effective. After the surgery just his eyes show through the bandages. For me, Bogart's eyes, sad and drooping, without the rest of his face lack a lot of energy. And Agnes Moorhead, when she's on a tear, can suck the air away from any actor who shares a scene with her. In Dark Passage, she's at the top of her game and makes everyone else, including Bogart, wilt a little next to her.
Still, the movie has a great San Francisco look about it. Clifton Young as the baby-faced hood was fun. And Houseley Stevenson as the corrupt surgeon, amoral but with a sense of humor, stole every scene he was in. On balance, I think the movie might have worked better if it had been made as a straight B programer with a competent but largely unknown actor as the lead, a red herring or two added and a more satisfying ending.
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