Dark Passage (1947)

Humphrey Bogart plays Vincent Parry, a convicted murder who has just escaped San Quentin Prison. Lauren Bacall is Irene Jansen, a woman interested in his case who shelters him. Vincent, believing he was framed, is desperate not to be sent back to prison so he enlists the help of a plastic surgeon to change his appearance.

This was a big deal for the studio because they were shelling out the money for Humphrey Bogart to star in this movie, but Vincent didn't look like Humphrey Bogart until after his surgery - meaning Bogart's face doesn't even appear on screen until the last third of the movie. The first two thirds we just see his hands and a first-person point of view followed by a brief time with his face in bandages.

First-person (or subjective) camera work was still rather exotic at the time. In today's context though, it feels like a video game. Another interesting filming choice was that this movie was shot on location in San Francisco. It's refreshing when compared to all the obviously studio set films of this era - even with the driving scenes clearly being in front of a screen.

As for the story, it's limited by the fact that Vincent is hiding and has nowhere else to go. Yet even in a confined plot Bacall and Bogart play off each other wonderfully. Dark Passage was the third out of the four on-screen partnerships between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and just like the rest, it makes you wish there had been more than four.

Rating: 3/5
Recommended for: Bacall/Bogie fans who wonder what plastic surgery was like in the 40's