Dark Passage

(Delmer Daves, US 1947, 106 min., 35mm)

In an adaptation of a classic noir novel by David Goodis, Humphrey Bogart is an innocent man convicted of murder. After he escapes from prison, plastic surgery allows him to go undetected as he searches for the true killer. Fun and technically dazzling, the film was the third to team Bogart with his new bride, Lauren Bacall. Here, she plays Bogie’s protector and love interest. The first-person camera used at the beginning of the film is a nod to the first-person narrator in much of the pulp fiction at the time, as well as a technique to ensure the studio didn’t have to hire anyone else to play Humphrey Bogart.