Dark Passage's Recent Activity

list Dark Passage's Recent Activity - Spout http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Dark Passage on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg Dark Passage's Recent Activity - Spout http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 Film:Dark Passage http://www.spout.com/films/Dark_Passage/8020/default.aspx

Title: Dark Passage
Year: 1947
Director: Delmer Daves
Plot: Robert Montgomery's 1946 film Lady in the Lake attempted to tell the entire story with a "subjective camera": shooting the film from the point of view of the main character, with the camera acting as his "eyes". The first hour or so of Dark Passage does the same thing--and the results are far more successful than anything seen in Montgomery's film. Humphrey Bogart heads the cast as an escaped convict, wrongly accused of his wife's murder. After being forced to beat up a man (Clifton Young) from whom he's hitched a ride, Bogart hides out in the apartment of Lauren Bacall, while recovering from plastic surgery, and tries to set about locating the actual murderer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 6
Number of Lists: 13
Number of blog posts: 1
Number of discussion threads: 1
SpoutRating: 4
]]>Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:37:34 GMTDark Passage1947Delmer Daves<a href="/players/P___103333/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Robert Montgomery</a>'s 1946 film <a href=/films/19525/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Lady in the Lake</a> attempted to tell the entire story with a "subjective camera": shooting the film from the point of view of the main character, with the camera acting as his "eyes". The first hour or so of Dark Passage does the same thing--and the results are far more successful than anything seen in Montgomery's film. <a href="/players/P_____7027/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Humphrey Bogart</a> heads the cast as an escaped convict, wrongly accused of his wife's murder. After being forced to beat up a man (Clifton Young) from whom he's hitched a ride, Bogart hides out in the apartment of <a href="/players/P_____3116/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Lauren Bacall</a>, while recovering from plastic surgery, and tries to set about locating the actual murderer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide6Taggedy Taggged (6-10)13114http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t79634hpvki.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Dark_Passage/8020/default.aspxFilm Spout Post: Re: Top 5 Actresses in Classic Film Noir http://www.spout.com/groups/Top_5/Re_Top_5_Actresses_in_Classic_Film_Noir/190/9119/1/ShowPost.aspx

Post By: Jymkata
Post To: Top 5
Post Date: 5/21/2007 6:34:35 PM
Body: Wow, great topic, since the women really make film noir sexy and mysterious 1. I loooove Gloria Grahame in everything so I guess I have to cheat and say that I would put three of her noir performances in a tie- tough and sexy Debby Marsh in The Big Heat, scheming Irene Neves in Sudden Fear, and complicated Laurel Grey in In a Lonely Place2. I think Joan Crawford gets a bad rap because of her personal life, but I think she makes every movie she's in better. I'm going to cheat again and list two favorites, as Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear and as the indomitable Mildred Pierce3. I agree with you Jim that Jane Greer's entrance in Out of the Past is one of the most memorable, maybe only rivaled by Lana Turner's in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Jane's performance makes that movie all the more mysterious and menacing. 4. Gene Tierney is a great noir actress as well. She is the haunting prescence in one of my all-time favs., Laura and she's great in the noirs Whirlpool and Where The Sidewalk Ends as well as the noirish Leave her to Heaven, 5. If you are talking about single performances it would be hard to beat the portrayal of a vicious femme fatale that Ann Savage gives in Detour. You don't root for Vera and she isn't glamorous, but she catches Tom Neal in her web and leads him to his destruction. Maybe Peggy Cummings in Gun Crazy comes close. Lauren Bacall in Dark Passage and Key Largo, Veronica Lake in This Gun for Hire, Joan Bennett in Woman in the Window, and Barbra Stanwyck in Double Indemnity are my alternates.
]]>Mon, 21 May 2007 22:34:35 GMTJymkataTop 55/21/2007 6:34:35 PMWow, great topic, since the women really make film noir sexy and mysterious 1. I loooove Gloria Grahame in everything so I guess I have to cheat and say that I would put three of her noir performances in a tie- tough and sexy Debby Marsh in The Big Heat, scheming Irene Neves in Sudden Fear, and complicated Laurel Grey in In a Lonely Place2. I think Joan Crawford gets a bad rap because of her personal life, but I think she makes every movie she's in better. I'm going to cheat again and list two favorites, as Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear and as the indomitable Mildred Pierce3. I agree with you Jim that Jane Greer's entrance in Out of the Past is one of the most memorable, maybe only rivaled by Lana Turner's in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Jane's performance makes that movie all the more mysterious and menacing. 4. Gene Tierney is a great noir actress as well. She is the haunting prescence in one of my all-time favs., Laura and she's great in the noirs Whirlpool and Where The Sidewalk Ends as well as the noirish Leave her to Heaven, 5. If you are talking about single performances it would be hard to beat the portrayal of a vicious femme fatale that Ann Savage gives in Detour. You don't root for Vera and she isn't glamorous, but she catches Tom Neal in her web and leads him to his destruction. Maybe Peggy Cummings in Gun Crazy comes close. Lauren Bacall in Dark Passage and Key Largo, Veronica Lake in This Gun for Hire, Joan Bennett in Woman in the Window, and Barbra Stanwyck in Double Indemnity are my alternates. Spout Post: Dark Passage http://www.spout.com/blogs/jimbell/archive/2007/4/27/7722.aspx

Post By: JimBell
Post To: JimBell Blog
Post Date: 4/27/2007 2:16:00 PM
Body: I really liked this movie, especially because it had a happy ending. After everything that Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) and Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall) go through, I wanted them to escape and live happily ever after. But this is one of those strange movies where a critique could go either way. If I start writing about the wonderful acting and the deep psychological motivation, the movie would sound excellent. On the other hand, if I focused on plot coincidences and lulls in the action, Dark Passages would sound like it was not worth watching. The logic of argument pushes me in whatever direction I start, like a train going down a track, so I’ll try to keep it balanced. The plot, in one sentence, is this: a man wrongly convicted of killing his wife escapes from prison and is helped by an interested rich woman until he can solve the murder. Unfortunately, the protagonist, Vincent Parry, is not particularly interesting—he is a bit thick and dull. I realize that many film noir protagonists are “chumps” or not too bright, but we spend an inordinate amount of time with Vincent Parry, and a lot of that time has little action. In contrast, consider The Killers. It too has a not-too-brilliant, ordinary-guy protagonist who is taken for a ride, but it is full of action. For example, we see the robbery and the fight among the robbers. In Dark Passage, the major crimes happen off screen. To make matters worse, Bogart, then the highest paid actor in Hollywood, plays Vincent Parry so phlegmatically that the character develops little depth. As suggested above, the other major weakness is that the killer operates off screen and has a minor role, although a major impact. Apparently, in the novel, much more time is spent on Madge Rapf, her motivation, and her skulduggery. But in the movie, only Agnes Moorehead’s superb performance gives Madge much credibility. Madge is not a stereotype. She is an ambitious, keenly intelligent, hard-nosed, slightly good-looking woman who, when her schemes do not work out, takes the “dog in the manger” attitude, that is, “if I can’t have it, you can’t either.” This motivation underlies the murder and Madge’s false testimony that got Vincent convicted. It underlies her peculiar relationship with Irene (Bacall). And, in the showdown, it explains her seemingly outrageous behaviour. When Vincent, the man she once wanted, confronts her with the facts of her two murders, she admits her guilt, says she is the only proof he has of his innocence, acknowledges that he and Irene want to establish his innocence and get together, and then she throws herself out of her seven-story window. We need to understand this woman better. The movie should have shown her in action or at least explained the genesis of her motivation. Incidentally, Vincent does not help the audience at all when he confuses things by telling Irene that Madge tripped and fell through the window. It is the worst line of dialogue in the movie. The strength of the movie is the acting—another reason Bogart’s low-key performance pales. Irene is good as a no-nonsense, independently wealthy woman who operates from unique motivation—her father was wrongfully convicted of killing her step-mother, and Irene does not want the same thing to happen to Vincent. She also slowly grows to like the chump. Maybe the fact that Bogart and Bacall were married explains the naturalistic acting in their scenes. For example, when she goes to cut off his bandages after his plastic surgery, she carries in and sets down the bowl and scissors with a natural ease of an old-fashioned wife taking care of her husband. She even makes a dry joke when pulling off the gauze. This husband/wife ease makes the happy ending seem more natural. Besides Bacall, the minor characters do a superb job. Tom D’Andrea as the cabby conveys a lonely guy wanting to get mixed up in other people’s business, yet at the same time a respectful and caring person, who, at the same time, has some well-used connections with non-legit businesses such as a plastic surgeon who will operate at 3:00 a.m. Houseley Stevenson who plays Dr. Coley, the surgeon, appears only once but leaves a lasting impression. Seventy years old and ugly, he appears a quack, and then he does a top-rate professional job. He is seriously philosophical, then bizarrely humorous, and then sternly business-like in his instructions for recovery. I really liked the theme song, “Too Marvellous for Words” (by Johnny Mercer and Richard Whiting), and it is introduced subtly throughout the movie, never loud and overbearing, only in quiet snippets. But this love song signals that Dark Passages is not the typical film noir that its title suggests. It is also a romance. Although it has the noir theme of an ordinary man wrongfully accused, it has a happy ending done Warner Brothers, big-studio style. Even though the Peruvian café is grossly elaborate, even though Vincent is sampling one of those sissy tropical drinks, even though Irene gets the band to play “Marvellous” for her entrance, I still clapped at the happy ending. Jim Bell
]]>Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:16:00 GMTJimBellJimBell Blog4/27/2007 2:16:00 PMI really liked this movie, especially because it had a happy ending. After everything that Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) and Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall) go through, I wanted them to escape and live happily ever after. But this is one of those strange movies where a critique could go either way. If I start writing about the wonderful acting and the deep psychological motivation, the movie would sound excellent. On the other hand, if I focused on plot coincidences and lulls in the action, Dark Passages would sound like it was not worth watching. The logic of argument pushes me in whatever direction I start, like a train going down a track, so I’ll try to keep it balanced. The plot, in one sentence, is this: a man wrongly convicted of killing his wife escapes from prison and is helped by an interested rich woman until he can solve the murder. Unfortunately, the protagonist, Vincent Parry, is not particularly interesting—he is a bit thick and dull. I realize that many film noir protagonists are “chumps” or not too bright, but we spend an inordinate amount of time with Vincent Parry, and a lot of that time has little action. In contrast, consider The Killers. It too has a not-too-brilliant, ordinary-guy protagonist who is taken for a ride, but it is full of action. For example, we see the robbery and the fight among the robbers. In Dark Passage, the major crimes happen off screen. To make matters worse, Bogart, then the highest paid actor in Hollywood, plays Vincent Parry so phlegmatically that the character develops little depth. As suggested above, the other major weakness is that the killer operates off screen and has a minor role, although a major impact. Apparently, in the novel, much more time is spent on Madge Rapf, her motivation, and her skulduggery. But in the movie, only Agnes Moorehead’s superb performance gives Madge much credibility. Madge is not a stereotype. She is an ambitious, keenly intelligent, hard-nosed, slightly good-looking woman who, when her schemes do not work out, takes the “dog in the manger” attitude, that is, “if I can’t have it, you can’t either.” This motivation underlies the murder and Madge’s false testimony that got Vincent convicted. It underlies her peculiar relationship with Irene (Bacall). And, in the showdown, it explains her seemingly outrageous behaviour. When Vincent, the man she once wanted, confronts her with the facts of her two murders, she admits her guilt, says she is the only proof he has of his innocence, acknowledges that he and Irene want to establish his innocence and get together, and then she throws herself out of her seven-story window. We need to understand this woman better. The movie should have shown her in action or at least explained the genesis of her motivation. Incidentally, Vincent does not help the audience at all when he confuses things by telling Irene that Madge tripped and fell through the window. It is the worst line of dialogue in the movie. The strength of the movie is the acting—another reason Bogart’s low-key performance pales. Irene is good as a no-nonsense, independently wealthy woman who operates from unique motivation—her father was wrongfully convicted of killing her step-mother, and Irene does not want the same thing to happen to Vincent. She also slowly grows to like the chump. Maybe the fact that Bogart and Bacall were married explains the naturalistic acting in their scenes. For example, when she goes to cut off his bandages after his plastic surgery, she carries in and sets down the bowl and scissors with a natural ease of an old-fashioned wife taking care of her husband. She even makes a dry joke when pulling off the gauze. This husband/wife ease makes the happy ending seem more natural. Besides Bacall, the minor characters do a superb job. Tom D’Andrea as the cabby conveys a lonely guy wanting to get mixed up in other people’s business, yet at the same time a respectful and caring person, who, at the same time, has some well-used connections with non-legit businesses such as a plastic surgeon who will operate at 3:00 a.m. Houseley Stevenson who plays Dr. Coley, the surgeon, appears only once but leaves a lasting impression. Seventy years old and ugly, he appears a quack, and then he does a top-rate professional job. He is seriously philosophical, then bizarrely humorous, and then sternly business-like in his instructions for recovery. I really liked the theme song, “Too Marvellous for Words” (by Johnny Mercer and Richard Whiting), and it is introduced subtly throughout the movie, never loud and overbearing, only in quiet snippets. But this love song signals that Dark Passages is not the typical film noir that its title suggests. It is also a romance. Although it has the noir theme of an ordinary man wrongfully accused, it has a happy ending done Warner Brothers, big-studio style. Even though the Peruvian café is grossly elaborate, even though Vincent is sampling one of those sissy tropical drinks, even though Irene gets the band to play “Marvellous” for her entrance, I still clapped at the happy ending. Jim Bell Spout Tag:Classic http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/Classic/MemberTagFilms.aspxClassic
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