Rating: 
Summary: Dark Horse, But a Winner
Review: The best of black-and-white films are such that the viewer forgets very quickly that there is no color. If truly good, it will impart a style and an atmosphere that color can't duplicate. By 1947, when this movie was made, there wasn't much that a major studio couldn't do superbly in B/W. All their talent has been transferred to this DVD. The premise for this movie is indeed improbable, and the idea that someone would want to change into the Bogart time-worn face is laughable. However, the interplay between the Bogarts is electric, and she never looked any sexier. The San Francisco art deco buildings and scenery is an added bonus. Agnes Moorhead, certainly one of our most underrated radio and film actresses, was never better as the catty friend. As a variation of film noir, though, this is fun to watch and gets better with each viewing.
Rating:
Summary: Dark Horse, But a Winner
Review: The best of black-and-white films are such that the viewer forgets very quickly that there is no color. If truly good, it will impart a style and an atmosphere that color can't duplicate. By 1947, when this movie was made, there wasn't much that a major studio couldn't do superbly in B/W. All their talent has been transferred to this DVD. The premise for this movie is indeed improbable, and the idea that someone would want to change into the Bogart time-worn face is laughable. However, the interplay between the Bogarts is electric, and she never looked any sexier. The San Francisco art deco buildings and scenery is an added bonus. Agnes Moorhead, certainly one of our most underrated radio and film actresses, was never better as the catty friend. As a variation of film noir, though, this is fun to watch and gets better with each viewing.
Rating: 
Summary: Murder Mystery Movie
Review: The film opens with a shot of San Quentin, a suburb of San Francisco. The film shows San Francisco circa 1947 - few cars, busses, or trucks in the streets. Bogart plays an escaped convict, a return to his 1930s characters. Coincidentally, he is picked up by landscape painter Bacall. (The camera avoids showing Bogart, because he gets plastic surgery to change his face.) It happens that her father was sent to prison, and died there, after being convicted of killing his second wife. The same crime of Bogart's character! Other psychological situations follow. Bogart is innocent of the crime; he was framed by a rejected ex-girlfriend's testimony. After his plastic surgery he returns to his friend's place and finds him murdered! So he returns to Bacall's place for shelter. After some interesting and dramatic incidents Bogart discovers the murderer of his wife and best friend - but to no avail! He then leaves for Arizona and South America. Later Bacall joins him, for a happy ending. But I wonder what the future holds for them? Anytime she gets upset she can turn him in, and, he is dependent upon her money.
Rating:
Summary: Not Bogart's best, but little is.
Review: The other reviewers are pretty accurate with their reviews, but maybe a little harsh. Parts of this movie don't work. At least, they don't work now, maybe they worked fifty years ago. The revelation of the central mystery is unsatisfying, and some of the character relationships are unbelievable. But so much does work! Eighty percent of this movie, the great camerawork, Bogart's plight up to and even after the plastic surgery, the young tough who wants to move up in the world. Yeah, it isn't Casablanca, to have and have not, or treasure of sierra madre. But it's fairly darn good, and one Bogart's top ten. For a noir or Bogart fan, it is a must see.
Rating: 
Summary: least known, one of their best
Review: the suspense of waiting 62 minutes to see the face of the star of the movie is way to long. it takes away 62 minutes of seeing Bogart and Bacall together. seeing what San Francisco looked like in 1947, as compared to now, is always fun. one of the most thrilling parts of the movie, was when Bogart was all bandaged up and climbing up the Filbert Steps. the house that appears over is shoulder is currently owned by a friend of mine. and for this reason (not the only reason), i am going to purchase this movie.
Rating:
Summary: All alone in a dark and sinister place
Review: This film is among my favorite film noir now. What really made it for me is that it paints a lonely and shadowy emotional landscape and lets us know and attach ourselves to the characters; characters who aren't criminals or necessarily treacherous, but lonely, solitary people who live in a dark world. Essentially it's a character story, and this works so well with the noirish atmosphere. Happily for us, it achieves all this without being depressing, but entirely captivating and very intriguing.
The plot is fairly simple (well, considering its friends in the genre): an escaped convict tries to hide, has his face disfigured (into Humphrey Bogart, which is pretty funny when you think about it), and then tries to unearth some answers involving his past. During his journey Vincent (Bogart) meets up with these people who all have something in common that drives them, loneliness, and his relationships with them add a compelling depth and intensely personal nature to what could have been an average crime story. It drives the film with these instead of some labryinthian plot about a crime or a heist, although it must be said that the plot is still ridiculously exciting, and still contains loads of suspense and enough twists to keep any noir-phile captivated. San Francisco serves as the magnificent moody setting with Bogart running around the city trying to escape the cops and still take care of his own problems. His hide and seek game really grabs you, it's thrillingly done and they bring you right down into it. Bogart turns in a fine performance, playing a sympathetic character who isn't very streetwise and not much of a tough guy at all (there's one scene where he's on the verge of nausea while talking to a detective, it's a very convincing performance from Bogart). Lauren Bacall is solid in this, again fairly different from other characters she's played. My favorites would have to be Tom D'Andrea and Agnes Moorehead in two excellent supporting roles.
I think some people probably find the style used during the first half hour annoying or gimmicky, it's told from Vincent's point of view (for example you'll have Lauren Bacall looking right into the camera, etc) and his face not shown at all. I once saw a movie using the same style and I couldn't get used to it, but with this one because of the context, how well it's used, and the fact that they only use it for the first third of the film, I think it's actually a pretty effective style.
This is a fine, fine film and one worth watching even just for it's take on the noir genre. It's a palpable, atmopsheric journey into a dark crime ridden underworld and allows us to mingle with its lonely people.
Rating:
Summary: A true great classic film!
Review: This is a film that I highly recommend. It's a great story as well. They don't make them like this anymore.
Rating:
Summary: It only gets Three Stars because of Boggie and Bacall
Review: This is one film where the on screen magic between Bogart and Bacall is enough to carry a film even though the direction is often not consistent and the screenplay was weak. Bogart plays a man who is framed for the murder of his wife and is helped by a woman (Bacall) to change his face and his name and start a new life. These two give good performances but the rest of the cast of actors really do not come across as being beliveable. Franz Waxman's music score is also pretty good.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent -- 10 stars
Review: This is one of my favorite movies and Humphrey Bogart is wonderful and so is Lauren Bacall. I take the video out many times and watch it and always enjoy it. The San Francisco backdrop, stylish photography and excellent performances make it a treat you won't forget.
Rating:
Summary: Agreeable, but not Bogey and Bacall's best
Review: This is the one in which Humphrey Bogart is not seen on camera until the movie is about a third over. (He's an escaped con who is going to have plastic surgery.) We see his "old" face in a newspaper photo, and then we see Bogart in bandages, reminding me a little of Claude Rains in the original The Invisible Man (1933), and finally we Bogey's face when Lauren Bacall removes the bandages. Although Dark Passage is representative of one of my favorite eras in film, namely the late forties/early fifties, on display here is not the best work of either of the principles. Two better films starring Bacall and Bogart are the Howard Hawks production of the Raymond Chandler novel, The Big Sleep (1946), and John Huston's Key Largo (1948), both classics. Delmer Daves, who went on to direct a number of mid-brow indulgences that achieved some box office success, including Broken Arrow (1950), Kings Go Forth (1958), and A Summer Place (1959), is here the victim of a mediocre script and his own tendency to disregard plausibility and plot logic in favor of moving on to the next scene. On the plus side, Dark Passage is free of the heavy-handed schmaltz and imbedded social messages that sometimes marred Daves' later films--that is, until the bus station scene, when, for a brief moment, I guess he couldn't control himself. Lauren Bacall is shown to advantage, and when she gets misted up, she is indeed very beautiful. But there is little challenge in the part she plays. Bogart is his usual self of course, and manages, once he gets the bandages off, to continue that very fine portrayal. However, the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall doesn't amount to much (although Bacall certainly is trying) until the phone call from the bus station. What Daves does manage well is the atmospheric feel of mid-century San Francisco. (I wonder if Florshiem Shoes and The Owl Drug Store paid for the shots that lingered on their lighted marquees...) Bacall's apartment with the winding staircase and the hi fi record player console, and the suits and hats of the men, and Bacall's languid, sleek dresses with the boxed shoulders, the cigarette cases and the pre rock and roll pop tunes on the radio (especially Mercer and Whiting's, "Too Marvelous for Words," sung by Jo Stafford) offer a nostalgic sense of time and place. Also good is the work of some of the supporting characters including Tom D'Andrea as the cabby and Houseley Stevenson as the plastic surgeon. Agnes Moorehead is memorable as Bogey's villainous ex. Perhaps the highlight of the film is the corny, but entirely agreeable, finale at the Peruvian cantina.
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