Dark Passage (1947)

Dark Passage (1947), directed by Delmer Daves.

An experimental production, the first half is mostly shot hand-held from Bogart's point of view. We have his voice but not his face because, as an escaped prisoner, he first needs plastic surgery before he becomes the Bogart we know.

It is more conventional thereafter although still with many oddities: one shot is up through a transparent floor.

The plot is strange: vast improbabilities, too many coincidences, and dead bodies accumulate as Bogart tries to clear his name. Bacall is one of those women who falls in love with a convict she's never met, working out something about her father. Agnes Moorehead is way over the top.

On the good side, the sensation of hiding, the paranoid fear of being hunted is well done. It is an interesting effort and worth seeing, but I think it's the least of the four films Bogart and Bacall did together.

A few years later it might have been a candidate for 3D treatment; it's shot with that look.

Warner Archive Blu-ray with prominent grain.

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