#noirvember22

[thefilmsimps]

Dark Passage (dir. Delmer Daves)

-Jere Pilapil- 6.5/10 I’ve seen this movie before, in my college days, going through a noir phase or a Bogart phase. Either way, I’d forgotten this one and probably conflated it with Key Largo in my head as “one of the ones with Bogart and Bacall in it, but not The Big Sleep and not the one with the ‘you know how to whistle, don’t you?’ scene”. And in the end, that’s kind of what it deserves: Delmer Daves’ Dark Passage is a perfectly passable noir with a couple wrinkles that elevate it ever-so-slightly. The first of those wrinkles is that the first third or so is filmed from a perspective. Humphrey Bogart plays Vincent Parry, a prison escapee convicted of murdering his wife. Except he doesn’t look like Bogart, as we see in a photograph printed in newspapers all over (an uncredited Frank Wilcox in the photo). It’s from this perspective that we meet Lauren Bacall as Irene Jansen, a woman whose father suffered a similar fate as Parry: innocent but convicted of murder. She shelters and clothes him long enough for him to (oh my fucking god) get plastic surgery that makes him look like Bogart. This is probably the most interesting stretch of the movie, though not entirely successfully. Filming like this is limited and goofy: early, when Vincent throws a punch, it looks an awful lot like melee combat in a video game. But we do get to enjoy Irene bossing Vincent around a bit, and some fun character work by Tom D’Andrea as a cab driver. Throughout, I had an uneasy feeling that the whole movie might be like this, that Bogart - then the highest paid actor in Hollywood - somehow agreed to essentially a voice actor roll. But once the movie reveals Bogart and gets down to business, things get a bit generic. See, Vincent, of course, wants to escape the law and wants to investigate the murder of a friend. The set up for this is a bit too neat: Madge, a former fling and a witness who testified against him (Agnes Moorehead) and her current beau Bob (Bruce Bennett) happen to be close friends with Irene. It creates the feeling of too tight a circle, a snow globe world that is distractingly convenient to the plot. The performances, specifically Bacall but Moorehead and Clifton Young as a smalltime crook, elevate this thing, but the third act falls apart as Vincent corners the perpetrator with essentially no leverage, and the final scene of the film feels extremely tacked on. Bogart is basically on autopilot here, navigating a bumpy script. Still, there are a lot of fun corners explored here. It may just be a silly curio, but it’s an enjoyable enough one.

[normasshearer]

I'm trying to help you to escape, aren't I? How can a madwoman help you escape? But you're not mad. Yes, I am mad, as my mother was! No, Paula. That wasn't true! Help me!

GASLIGHT 1944, dir. George Cukor

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IDA LUPINO as Mildred Donner in WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956) dir. Fritz Lang

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Near the Plaza was a little cafe called La Mar Azul, next to a movie house. I sat there in the afternoons and drank beer. I used to sit there half asleep with a beer in the darkness, only the music from the movie next door kept jarring me awake. And then I saw her—coming out of the sun. And I knew why Whit didn't care about that 40 grand.

ROBERT MITCHUM as Jeff Bailey in OUT OF THE PAST (1947) dir. Jacques Tourneur

[normasshearer]

Harry... You could have been anything. Anything. You had brains... ambition. You worked harder than any 10 men. But the wrong things. Always the wrong things.

GENE TIERNEY as Mary Bristol in NIGHT BY THE CITY (1950) dir. Jules Dassin

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ANN BLYTH, ELLA RAINES, YVONNE DE CARLO, & ANITA COLBY as "The Women on the Outside" in BRUTE FORCE (1947) dir. Jules Dassin

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FILM NOIR WOMEN WITH GUNS (pt. 1)

Jane Greer, Out of the Past (1947) dir. Jacques Tourneur

Mary Astor, The Maltese Falcon (1941) dir. John Huston

Martha Vickers, The Big Sleep (1946) dir. Howard Hawks

Peggy Dow, Woman in Hiding (1950) dir. Michael Gordon

Barbara Stanwyck, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) dir. Lewis Milestone

Jean Gillie, Decoy (1946) dir. Jack Bernhard

Lizabeth Scott, Pitfall (1948) dir. André De Toth

Anita Colby, Brute Force (1947) dir. Jules Dassin

Bette Davis, Deception (1946) dir. Irving Rapper

[normasshearer]

Driving along with such a dream doll beside me, I figured myself a pretty lucky guy.

JOHN HOYT and ANITA COLBY as Spencer and Flossie in BRUTE FORCE (1947) dir. Jules Dassin

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THE NAKED CITY  1948, dir. Jules Dassin

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Get out, Veda. Get your things out of this house right now before I throw them out into the street and you with them. Get out before I kill you!

MILDRED PIERCE 1945, dir. Michael Curtiz

[normasshearer]

"In 1539, the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels… but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day…"

THE MALTESE FALCON 1941, dir. John Huston

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OUT OF THE PAST  1947, dir. Jacques Tourneur

[normasshearer]

You've only me to make deals with now. Well, build my gallows high, baby.

OUT OF THE PAST  1947, dir. Jacques Tourneur

[normasshearer]

I used to think to myself the reason I fell for you was because you were smart. Now I find out that you are smart. "Double-crossed." Ha! I'll say I was. You and that Keats fixed it up so that I tried to kill you too. That was to get you clear. And then you two fixed it up to plead me guilty. Well, listen, Mr. Frank Chambers. When I get through, you'll find out there's such a thing as being too smart!

LANA TURNER as Cora Smith in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946) dir. Tay Garnett

[normasshearer]

I’ll take him. I can feel it.

THE SET-UP 1949, dir. Robert Wise

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Nobody escapes. Nobody ever really escapes.

BRUTE FORCE 1947, dir. Jules Dassin