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A Few Words About A few words about...™ Dark Passage -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Robert Harris

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For those of you who are completists, we've reached a landmark.

Mr. Bogart and Ms Bacall made four films together.

To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948), all except To Have... finally joined in Warner Archive Blu-ray paradise.

Dark Passage is an interesting, and wonderful film, from any number of perspectives, but I'll let the HTF reviewer handle that aspect of the release.

What's important is that Warner Archive's new Blu-ray, is in typical fashion, absolutely perfect.

Gray scale, contrast and black levels, grain structure are all in proper order.

You'll want to own this one.

And for the uninitiated, what does Dark Passage have to do with Lady in the Lake, anyway?

Image - 5

Audio - 5

4k Up-rez - 5

Pass / Fail - Pass

Highly Recommended

RAH
 
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Josh Steinberg

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Did I miss the To Have Or Have Not announcement? Cause that's fantastic news. And I'm very excited to add Dark Victory to my collection, thanks as always for the write-up!
 

Matt Hough

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Both Dark Passage and Lady in the Lake use first person camera perspectives. It's one of the things I find most intriguing about each of them.
 

Robert Harris

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All
Freudian slip from someone in the know??? Hope so. While I've assumed a release of THAHN was coming, I've not seen the announcement either.

All in good time. To Have... is a bit of a problem film, as the OCN does not survive. Finest extant element is a 35mm nitrate fine grain master, which has seen better days, but fortunately has been preserved by MOMA.

The first film of the four together, will be the most difficult to prepare, but I'm sure that it's being worked on.

RAH
 

Robert Crawford

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Both Dark Passage and Lady in the Lake use first person camera perspectives. It's one of the things I find most intriguing about each of them.
Yup, which is a reason both films are personal favorites of mine. Lady in the Lake I try to watch every Christmas season because of the time of the year in the film. Dark Passage, is another favorite, not so much because of Bogart and Bacall, but the supporting performance from Agnes Moorehead.
 

Ahab

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Both Dark Passage and Lady in the Lake use first person camera perspectives. It's one of the things I find most intriguing about each of them.

Yes, but I am glad Dark Passage switched back to the third person view. And the first person view was I think justified in that film due to the 'transformation' of Bogart's character. While I enjoyed Lady in the Lake the first person perspective still strikes me as merely a gimmick.
 

classicmovieguy

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This is unquestionably my favourite of the four Bacall-Bogart films. On top of the cracking storyline and the fascinating "first person" camera trick, the support cast is first-rate, with mention to Agnes Moorehead as one of the nastiest, creepiest women in cinema history.
 

Oblivion138

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While it's not my favorite, Dark Passage is easily the most underrated of the four Bogart/Bacall screen pairings. It's a great picture, with a fun gimmick, that is too often overlooked. While The Big Sleep was THE Bogie & Bacall film I was waiting for on BD, I'm every bit as excited for Dark Passage as I was for Key Largo, or will be for To Have and Have Not.

Bonus points for also inspiring Robert Zemeckis's Season 6 finale of Tales from the Crypt, which revived Bogart via digital compositing, cast him against Isabella Rossellini (in a duplicate of her mother's suit from Casablanca), John Lithgow, and Sherilyn Fenn, and maintained the first-person perspective to good effect. The plot even involves a criminal having plastic surgery to look like Bogart.
 

Josh Steinberg

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I never saw that Tales From The Crypt - will have to keep an eye out for it, sounds great!
 

Josh Steinberg

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I hate to admit it, but I've never actually seen this one. It's just a coincidence that I've been watching a ton of Bogart this year, so it was a great surprise to have this come out right as I'm enjoying his filmography. Really excited to see it.
 

Oblivion138

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It's low resolution, but here you go:


That's it, though that video removes the Crypt Keeper segments, which featured the undead host interacting with a digitally resurrected Alfred Hitchcock. As an episode, it's a lot of fun. It was originally intended as the final episode of the series, until Fox (who were having much success with their late-night reruns of censored TFTC episodes) talked HBO into producing a seventh and final season. I remember it being kind of a big deal at the time, Robert Zemeckis taking the digital tricks he'd used on Forrest Gump and bringing them to the small screen, to resurrect a movie idol from decades past. And of course, the casting of Isabella Rossellini was the icing on the cake. TV Guide and other entertainment magazines did articles on the episode, which I believe was still being touted as the series finale.

These days, of course, it's very easy to see the seams (just as it is with the aforementioned Forrest Gump), but that just makes it more fun, in a way. And for 1994/1995, it was an impressive feat for television. Obviously, there's tons of CGI on every TV show now, but in those days, it was still considered something special.
 

Paul Penna

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What's important is that Warner Archive's new Blu-ray, is in typical fashion, absolutely perfect.

Gray scale, contrast and black levels, grain structure are all in proper order.

Does it appear to you that original camera negative(s) was used or element(s) farther down the chain?
 

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