Yes, Dark Passage, is maybe a bit kooky, but that is the secret of its charm for those of us that are SF natives. It’s far from my top 25-30 noirs, but I’d rather watch it than The Lady In The Lake, The Brasher Doubloon, or dozens of other noirs any day of the week. It seems the dead end psychically doomed souls David Goodis created started and ended in the mean streets of Philly. The publication of Dark Passage was the entry way to Hollywood for Goodis, who, within 3-4 years or so, hightailed it back to his familiar haunts in Philly.
Does Agnes Moorehead over act, or is it that the character of Madge is a high strung type A personality who is afraid of Parry’s retribution? As the plastic surgeon, Houseley Stevenson gives a performance that is one of the more amusing and somewhat sinister characters in all of noir, imo. As For Tom D’Andrea – he reminds me of my late stepfather. Before he bought his own cab company, he spent years as a cabbie, and like D’Andrea, a plain talker, a guy of the street, who always went out of his way to help a fella out, whether in a jam or not. Bacall’s apartment (the Malloch Building) on the top point of Telegraph Hill is an iconic spot for local noir fans. A few years ago, one of those apartments in the building was up for sale in what I recall was in the $7 mil range. I’ve known noir hounds that have made a pilgrimage to it, like going to Lourdes for wise guys. Every time I went back to visit I went up there and walked up the steps to the third floor. Also, let’s not forget those Filbert Street steps right next to the Malloch where Bogey stumbles up one night , while a couple of guys below on Sansome Street are badgering him. If it wasn’t for one of those Malloch apts., I always fantasized about living in one of the small houses that branch out from the Filbert steps, and try to not think what would happen living there when the earthquake of the century would topple it all down.