Bogart is largely absent from view throughout Dark Passage, often heard but not seen. Whenever the camera isn’t presenting events from his perspective—a trick that feels dated now, although it may have seemed fresh in 1947, similar to an early version of a first-person game—his face is either obscured by shadows or hidden behind bandages. The latter comes about because of a cosmetic procedure performed in a dark alle…

Dark Passage offers an interesting experience, though not a particularly illuminating one. Vincent Parry is incarcerated at San Quentin following his wife’s death, and he makes an escape with the goal of proving his innocence. Following his release, Irene Jansen takes him in—she'd been closely monitoring his case—and he receives information from a taxi driver that leads him to an underground plastic surgeon. After…