by David C. Terr

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Title: Dark Passage

Director: Delmer Daves

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead

Release Date: Sept. 5, 1947 (USA)

Running Time: 106 min

Genres: Film-Noir, Thriller

Commentary
Dark Passage is a thrilling film-noir mystery. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are both superb and have great chemistry. The storyline is also great, as are the scenes of San Francisco from the 1940s.

Plot Summary
The movie begins with Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) escaping from San Quentin, a prison near San Francisco, where he'd been convicted of killing his wife. The first half-hour or so of the film is shown completely from his eyes and his face is not shown. Eventually a young woman named Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall) who's interested in his case, helps him and shelters him. He receives plastic surgery so that the authorities can't recognize him. Eventually he finds his wife's real murderer and he and Irene fall in love and run off together to Peru.

Cultural Significance
Dark Passage is one of several classic romantic films for Bogie and Bacall, some others being To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948). It is also one of many film-noir films, a movie genre which was quite popular in the '40s and '50s. Bogart and Bacall were married in 1945 (Bogart's fourth marriage) and he remained married to her until he died in 1957.