The least known of the four Bogey and Bacall movies and deservedly so has to be Dark Passage. The other three have become classics to some' degree and this one hasn't.
There are just too many coincidences and too many plot holes for the good ship Dark Passage to float. Lauren Bacall just happens to be out painting when Bogart crashes out of San Quentin, she just happens to know some of the principals in the case that sent Bogart up in the first place, Bogart happens to get into a cab where a friendly helpful cab driver happens to know a good plastic surgeon. It's all too too unreal.
Yet Dark Passage does have its good moments. Bacall and Bogey are smoking up the screen as they did in To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and later in Key Largo. Agnes Moorehead steals the film from both of them with an over the top performance which is a text book example of overacting. My guess is Agnes was simply trying to overcome a bad script.
Delmer Daves who is a fine director for outdoor films, westerns like Jubal and 3:10 to Yuma is also not the right director for Dark Passage. If Alfred Hitchcock had directed it with a better script, Dark Passage may very well have been the best instead of the worst of the Bogart Bacall teamings.
One character I really liked though was Clifton Young who first picks up Bogart on the road after the escape. Bogart slugs him when he catches wise, but later Young returns for some blackmail. He's a two bit punk, very much along the lines of Elisha Cook, Jr. in The Maltese Falcon and you really are happy when he meets his fate.
Dark Passage also helped the great Richard Whiting-Johnny Mercer standard, Too Marvelous for Words get a revival. Didn't cost the brothers Warner a dime as they owned the rights to the song, it having been introduced in the Ruby Keeler musical, Ready, Willing, and Able. Just like As Time Goes By got a revival from Casablanca.
But we remember Casablanca a whole lot more than Dark Passage.
There are just too many coincidences and too many plot holes for the good ship Dark Passage to float. Lauren Bacall just happens to be out painting when Bogart crashes out of San Quentin, she just happens to know some of the principals in the case that sent Bogart up in the first place, Bogart happens to get into a cab where a friendly helpful cab driver happens to know a good plastic surgeon. It's all too too unreal.
Yet Dark Passage does have its good moments. Bacall and Bogey are smoking up the screen as they did in To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and later in Key Largo. Agnes Moorehead steals the film from both of them with an over the top performance which is a text book example of overacting. My guess is Agnes was simply trying to overcome a bad script.
Delmer Daves who is a fine director for outdoor films, westerns like Jubal and 3:10 to Yuma is also not the right director for Dark Passage. If Alfred Hitchcock had directed it with a better script, Dark Passage may very well have been the best instead of the worst of the Bogart Bacall teamings.
One character I really liked though was Clifton Young who first picks up Bogart on the road after the escape. Bogart slugs him when he catches wise, but later Young returns for some blackmail. He's a two bit punk, very much along the lines of Elisha Cook, Jr. in The Maltese Falcon and you really are happy when he meets his fate.
Dark Passage also helped the great Richard Whiting-Johnny Mercer standard, Too Marvelous for Words get a revival. Didn't cost the brothers Warner a dime as they owned the rights to the song, it having been introduced in the Ruby Keeler musical, Ready, Willing, and Able. Just like As Time Goes By got a revival from Casablanca.
But we remember Casablanca a whole lot more than Dark Passage.