RED ENVELOPES: Lost in the Dark

Aside from being unexpectedly entertaining, our copy of SceneIt! Turner Classic Movies Edition has proven to be quite informative. We received this two Christmases ago, and in the course of playing the game, have been treated to clips from films that we really ought to have seen. The most egregious example of this is the first onscreen collaboration of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, To Have and Have Not. In a single two-minute clip, the romantic attraction between the couple comes searing through the screen. It's the famous "You know how to whistle" scene, and at the end, Bogie has a look on his face like he just survived the biggest, hottest hurricane ever recorded. It's sensational, and that went right on to the Netflix queue the second we got home.

Being the hopeless completist that I am, I also added the rest of their films together. We already had The Big Sleep in our possession, leaving only Key Largo and our Sunday night feature, Dark Passage. Through all three films so far, the chemistry between Bogie and Bacall is unmistakable. Dark Passage, however, adds a new wrinkle to their oeuvre, in that it is one of the weirdest motion pictures ever made.

Our plot: Vincent Parry, convicted of murdering his wife, makes a dramatic escape from San Quentin, seeking redeption and justice. But with a face easily recognizable as that of a convicted killer, Parry must rely on his wits, the help of a mysterious woman, and some plastic surgery if he's going to find the real killer. Got all that? Good, because it's the last thing that's going to make any sense.

What I'm about to tell you is the kind of thing that might be considered a spoiler, but it amounts to absolutely no surprise whatsoever if you watched the opening credits or even read the movie poster, so I'm going to let it slip. That plastic surgery I mentioned? It makes our hero look like Humphrey Bogart. (Not literally. Rather, Vincent Parry emerges from the surgery with new facial features, as portrayed by Humphrey Bogart. The movie doesn't get all Ocean's Twelve on us.) What this means is, until the plastic surgery is performed, Vincent Parry must look like someone else. Not Bogart. So how is this accomplished? Another actor? Extensive makeup. Nope. Instead, director Delmer Daves chooses to shoot most of the first half of the film in first-person. Bogart can be heard in voice-over, but aside from a photo in the newspaper, we don't actually lay eyes on our hero for about an hour. It's a lot like the Christopher Walken sketches on SNL where he plays The Continental. So let me emphasize this point once more, because it's really extraordinary: for the first hour of the film, we don't see Humphrey Bogart. International star of screen Humphrey Bogart. Unseen.

A documentary on the disc indicates that producer Jack Warner was less than pleased that his big box office draw was not getting much screen time in the film in which he was the ostensible star. I'll bet he was.

It gets better. He emerges from plastic surgery covered in bandages. Those unmistakable Bogart eyes are visible, but the rest of his head is swaddled in gauze, so now he can't talk. Incredible. First we couldn't see Bogart. Now we can slightly see him, but we can't hear him. Dark Passage is quickly becoming the greatest tease in movie history. Imagine that they'd cast Brad Pitt is the title character in V for Vendetta, and you get a taste of the sadism being perpetrated by the filmmakers.

Fortunately, there's plenty of confusing and inexplicable plot points to distract you. The biggest has to be the entire part played by Bacall. She's Bogie's rescuer, picking him up off the road after his escape from prison. But it turns out that she has followed his case from the start, moved by similarities with the unjust conviction and execution of her father. (Were this film made today, there might be some discussion of an inept criminal justice system. But here, it's just bad luck.) And yet, we're somehow supposed to just accept it on faith that she basically camped out near San Quentin at the exact moment Bogie is breaking out.

Of course, Bacall's unwavering support for a person convicted of murder is only in keeping with the attitude of the film's San Francisco. Everybody in this town is happy to help out. Parry's best friend happily agrees to put him up. A short-order cook laments asking a question that gives Parry away. Best of all, a cab driver makes all the arrangements for Parry's surgery, unsolicited, purely out of the kindness of his heart, and doesn't expect a dime in payment. Why? Who knows? The point is, Bacall's altruism is one of those things you're just supposed to accept. That's the way we do things in San Francisco.

(By the way, Dark Passage features a lot of location shooting in the City By the Bay, and it's totally worth it. In many respects, San Francisco looks much as it does today, minus some skyscrapers and an unnaturally-tall pyramid. But Bogart's long walks up ridiculous hills are perfect mise-en-scene, and there's not a film in existence that hasn't been helped by the Golden Gate Bridge looming in the background. Vertigo, Magnum Force, Star Trek IV...

What's not so easy to accept is the central role Bacall's character plays in the story. We're told she's a person who has followed Bogie's case. He doesn't know her, and only stumbles back to her apartment because he has nowhere else to go. Again, they don't know each other. But when the woman -- a pre-Endora Agnes Moorehead -- whose testimony sent Bogart to prison goes looking for help, where does she go? To Bacall. And who is Bacall's occasional boyfriend? Why it's Moorehead's ex. In short, WHAT? How the hell do these people know each other? What are they doing together? Let the hair-ripping commence. Dark Passage, when it comes right down to it, doesn't make any sense.

I liked it, though. I laughed out loud at the plot inconsistencies and the really stupid things characters did and the silly machinations of a plot that just does what it's told. And the reason I liked it is pretty simple: Humphrey Bogart. Even in voice alone, the man is the same entertaining icon we know and love. My wife commented during the movie that he's not especially attractive, not in a pretty-boy sense. But he's definitely handsome, alluring in his charisma and demeanor. You like Bogie. In To Have and Have Not, you understand his attraction to Bacall. She's magnetic. In Dark Passage, you get a sense of how it worked the other way. He's accused of murder, he's wrapped in bandages and takes all his food through a straw, he's always trying to look out for her welfare by leaving her behind. And she wants him all the more. So the film's end is really the only direction the film can take.

(About that film's ending, see if you don't find yourself muttering the words, "I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.")

Dark Passage is a tribute to the power of stars. It's a movie that succeeds entirely based on the goodwill engendered by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and their luminiscent on-screen attraction. You don't need to see it. But if you do, Bogie will get you through.

I feel like the cab driver. I'm just happy to help.