Noir Alley

[lavenderblue19]

Something that I find very interesting about Dark Passage, is that justice thru the courts is never served. We know Vincent is innocent but he's never proven innocent in the courts yet he and Lauren do get to go off into the sunset together, Madge has committed murder, yet she either dies accidentally or by suicide, so she's not punished by the court and the petty hoodlum Baker who threatens to extort money and will probably go on haunting Vincent and Irene forever. ( I guess that's suppose to justify his death, he also knows of Vincent's plan to get to Benton,Arizona and that could catch up with Vincent, so Baker had to be be disposed) Baker dies when he falls while he and Bogart are fighting. Justice is served in Dark Passage, but not by the courts.

We are lead to believe that Irene's father was innocent but he dies in prison convicted of a murder he didn't commit and Vincent being falsely accused of murder, it seems that Dark Passage makes a negative statement about the judicial system. Wonder how Breen felt about that.

As far as Madge's death is concerned, Breen was a strict Catholic and I think that's the reason suicide would not be permitted to be shown as the reason for Madge's death.

[Swithin]

8 minutes ago, lavenderblue19 said:

As far as Madge's death is concerned, Breen was a strict Catholic and I think that's the reason suicide would not be permitted to be shown as the reason for Madge's death.

Here's the actual Production Code clause that governed suicide when Dark Passage was made. Suicide is discouraged but not forbidden. Madge's suicide is absolutely necessary for the development of the plot. Accidental death would not have cemented the utter nastiness of her character; and it would have been a dramatic copout.

December 20, 1938, to March 27, 1951

5.   Suicide, as a solution of problems occurring in the development of screen drama, is to be discouraged as morally questionable and as bad theatre—unless absolutely necessary for the development of the plot.

[speedracer5]

5 hours ago, Swithin said:

That plastic surgery scene is something! Imagine getting a referral from a cab driver, and then having the surgery right away! I don't think I would take any medical referral from a NYC cab driver.

I know! He randomly gets a surgery recommendation from a cab driver for some disbarred plastic surgeon and decides at 3am to get the work done.  Apparently Bogart didn't need to see any references or examples of his work.  I will say that that surgeon was gifted.  Bogart doesn't look anything like his character's picture in the newspaper!

[lavenderblue19]

If that were so, we would have seen Madge jump out the window instead of the drape hiding what happened. As you say Madge having an accidental death may have been a cop-out but that is what we are lead to believe in Dark Passage  because of the production code. We do NOT see Madge jump out of the window and Bogart tells Becall that Madge's death was an accident, he NEVER says she kills herself.

The film is Vincent's story, not Madge's, I think we realize though that Madge is truly evil and nuts. Do I think that Madge is capable of killing herself, yes I do and I said from the start in the novel she dies by her own hand, but to appease Breen  her death whether by accident or suicide is not made clear.

One thing Eddie did say was that copious notes were made during the production of Dark Passage and Madge's death is discussed. I believe that is probably where Eddie got his info from concerning Madge's death.

edited by me

[lavenderblue19]

3 hours ago, cigarjoe said:

It may have been a case of who benefited, my memory about this is vague since it's been awhile but, I've read that Breen had a personal hand in some productions of which he let slide some things while bringing the hammer down on others.

Exactly and I think in the case of Dark Passage that's what happened..

[LornaHansonForbes]

53 minutes ago, Swithin said:

Here's the actual Production Code clause that governed suicide when Dark Passage was made. Suicide is discouraged but not forbidden. Madge's suicide is absolutely necessary for the development of the plot. Accidental death would not have cemented the utter nastiness of her character; and it would have been a dramatic copout.

December 20, 1938, to March 27, 1951

5.   Suicide, as a solution of problems occurring in the development of screen drama, is to be discouraged as morally questionable and as bad theatre—unless absolutely necessary for the development of the plot.

now this is very interesting to me.

I see the date this policy was enacted (1938) and wonder if maybe it had something to do with STAGE DOOR from the previous year (in which a prominent character commits suicide.)

It also makes me wonder how they got away with both HUMORESQUE (1946) and FOUR DAUGHTERS (1938).

(spoilers ahead)

both of those films feature rather romantic portrayals of suicide as a noble act; the scene in HUMORESQUE is the high point of the film, but not necessary to the plot [it could've ended many other ways] and it could in fact be called "bad theatre": (see the SCTV parody for confirmation on that.) I only recently saw FOUR DAUGHTERS for the first time and was unsettled by how easy Michael Curtiz's direction makes suicide seem in a moment when a character decides to off themself for the better good of everyone, just close your eyes in a snowstorm and all your problems are fixed....

 

[Swithin]

29 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

now this is very interesting to me.

I see the date this policy was enacted (1938) and wonder if maybe it had something to do with STAGE DOOR from the previous year (in which a prominent character commits suicide.)

I think they had different rules for different times. I chose the one that I quoted, because it was relevant to my post about Dark Passage. I don't know if there was one earlier. The wording changed in 1951. One could argue that maybe Dark Passage partly accounted for the change, since it's used to defeat the due process of law.

From March 27, 1951

5.   Suicide, as a solution of problems occurring in the development of screen drama, is to be discouraged as morally questionable and as bad theatre—unless absolutely necessary for the development of the plot. It should never be justified or glorified or used to defeat the due process of law.

[JamesJazGuitar]

2 hours ago, Swithin said:

Here's the actual Production Code clause that governed suicide when Dark Passage was made. Suicide is discouraged but not forbidden. Madge's suicide is absolutely necessary for the development of the plot. Accidental death would not have cemented the utter nastiness of her character; and it would have been a dramatic copout.

December 20, 1938, to March 27, 1951

5.   Suicide, as a solution of problems occurring in the development of screen drama, is to be discouraged as morally questionable and as bad theatre—unless absolutely necessary for the development of the plot.

Thanks this explains it for me;   In a film like The Glass Key suicide was necessary for the development of the plot because, since Ladd destroys the suicide note from the newspaper publisher, which allowed his buddy to get a judge to sign over the paper's rights to someone that was on his side.    Same with Leave Her To Heaven; suicide is necessary for development of the plot.

In DP,  it doesn't matter WHY Marge died,  but just that she was dead leaving Vincent with no options to prove himself innocent.      

So thanks since I have wondered about this for over 30 years since I first saw the film on the big screen in La La Land at a revival theater.

 

[ElCid]

18 hours ago, Vautrin said:

Bogie can never prove his innocence so he

has to leave the country and hightail it down to Peru to be joined by Bacall. A

happier ending than Alec Guinness had in The Lavender Hill Mob. 

 

Always found it interesting that people on the lam in many movies go to South America or Mexico, probably without a passport, but have no problem acquiring a good income.  While Bogie may have had some resources, he was able to live in Peru and go to a nice restaurant/bar every night while waiting for Bacall to show up.  Wonder how long it did take here to show up.

[Hibi]

Lower cost of living. LOL Dark Passage has a lot of coincidences and plot points that are hard to swallow. But I like the location work and point of camera view in the beginning which makes it interesting to watch.

[Vautrin]

6 hours ago, TheCid said:

Always found it interesting that people on the lam in many movies go to South America or Mexico, probably without a passport, but have no problem acquiring a good income.  While Bogie may have had some resources, he was able to live in Peru and go to a nice restaurant/bar every night while waiting for Bacall to show up.  Wonder how long it did take here to show up.

That's the magic of Hollywood. No passport, no money, no problem. It is a bit plausible in this

case since Bacall seems to be pretty well set up and we can assume that she slipped Bogie enough

spending dough until she arrives with the rest of the bank. And at the very beginning, she just

happened to be painting up near San Quentin on that particular day and then finds Bogie in the

ditch off the road. Okayyy.

[speedracer5]

8 hours ago, TheCid said:

Always found it interesting that people on the lam in many movies go to South America or Mexico, probably without a passport, but have no problem acquiring a good income.  While Bogie may have had some resources, he was able to live in Peru and go to a nice restaurant/bar every night while waiting for Bacall to show up.  Wonder how long it did take here to show up.

When he calls Bogart about meeting him in Peru, he does mention that she'll need to wait about 6 months so that he can get down to Peru and establish himself.  I would guess that Bacall headed down as soon as the 6 months was up. I like that he didn't tell her what bar to go to, just where to go.  Maybe the town they met up in only had one bar.  

I would also speculate that Bacall spotted him some money to survive on. I assume that she inherited her father's estate after his death.  They do state that her father was a wealthy architect. 

[ElCid]

1 hour ago, speedracer5 said:

When he calls Bogart about meeting him in Peru, he does mention that she'll need to wait about 6 months so that he can get down to Peru and establish himself.  I would guess that Bacall headed down as soon as the 6 months was up. I like that he didn't tell her what bar to go to, just where to go.  Maybe the town they met up in only had one bar.  

I would also speculate that Bacall spotted him some money to survive on. I assume that she inherited her father's estate after his death.  They do state that her father was a wealthy architect. 

According to Baker, she was worth $200,000.  He found this out from the automobile club.  

[speedracer5]

1 hour ago, TheCid said:

According to Baker, she was worth $200,000.  He found this out from the automobile club.  

According to the Inflation Calculator, $200,000 in 1947 is about the same as $2.3 million these days.

I would hate it if you could get as much information as Baker did just by getting her license plate number.  Nowadays, I'm not sure if just anyone can go to the DMV with a license plate number and get someone's name and address; but you definitely could in old movies and television shows.  There's an episode of Mary Tyler Moore where Mary scores a date from a guy who got her license plate number and called the DMV and got her name, address and phone number.  Mary seems to find it endearing, personally I'd be creeped out.  

Anyway, this seems to be what Baker did to get Bacall's information, but I find it disconcerting that some company would just willy nilly give out people's net worth to anyone who asked. 

[Hibi]

12 hours ago, TheCid said:

According to Baker, she was worth $200,000.  He found this out from the automobile club.  

So much for confidentiality.......

[LornaHansonForbes]

17 minutes ago, Hibi said:

So much for confidentiality.......

I know, right? That's worse than Facebook.

[Hibi]

31 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

I know, right? That's worse than Facebook.

LOL.

[misswonderly3]

Noir Alley friends, I'm surprised none of you seem to remember what Eddie Muller said regarding Madge's death. I can't quote him word for word, and I might be mistaken about this, since I'm just going from memory, but I'm pretty sure he said something like this:

"Madge's character would not have been allowed to commit suicide because the Code did not allow criminals to escape the justice system that way. So technically, Madge would have had to die by accident..." The Code did not want wrongdoers to avoid the formal indictment of a criminal in court, even if they in a way received the justice /punishment they deserved by taking their own life.

That would explain, as many here have noted, why her actually falling out the window is shielded from the viewers by the curtain; we just will never know for sure if she fell or jumped, and I'm sure that Delmore Daves wanted the Code people to think it was an accident, but also wanted the more discerning audience to figure out she'd broken the window and jumped. On purpose.

Now having said that, I'm predicting a lot of you will come up with movie examples of people who committed a crime and then offed themselves before the police and the courts could get to them. (Like "Confidential Agent", the example Swithin gives.)

[JamesJazGuitar]

10 minutes ago, misswonderly3 said:

Now having said that, I'm predicting a lot of you will come up with movie examples of people who committed a crime and then offed themselves before the police and the courts could get to them. (Like "Confidential Agent", the example Swithin gives.)

The Asphalt Jungle: With the confession, Hardy arrests Emmerich, persuading Angela to tell the truth. Emmerich is permitted to leave the room for a minute and commits suicide.

Since there are many other examples,  I still have the POV that those enforcing the Code were mostly concerned about a suicide being shown on screen.

 

 

[misswonderly3]

1 hour ago, jamesjazzguitar said:

The Asphalt Jungle: With the confession, Hardy arrests Emmerich, persuading Angela to tell the truth. Emmerich is permitted to leave the room for a minute and commits suicide.

Since there are many other examples,  I still have the POV that those enforcing the Code were mostly concerned about a suicide being shown on screen.

 

 

Yeah, I know...and there are probably loads more examples, especially in crime movies and noir.  Well, all I can say is, I do remember Eddie saying that, about how the Code did not like murderers to commit suicide before the police could catch them because they (the Code censors) wanted them to be brought to justice, not just end their lives before their guilt could be proven in court.

Maybe it wasn't a rule, more a policy the censors had?  I dunno. And certainly, there are many examples of criminals dying, even if not by their own hand, in noir and gangster movies. Usually shot, either by the police pursuing them or by an enemy of some kind.

[cmovieviewer]

3 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:

Noir Alley friends, I'm surprised none of you seem to remember what Eddie Muller said regarding Madge's death.

Just to confirm your point, in describing the differences between the book and the film, Eddie states:

“If that scene was a bit confusing to you, there’s a reason: Hollywood’s Production Code did not allow a character to commit suicide as a way of escaping justice.  In Goodis’s novel, it’s clear that when crazily-vindictive Madge hurls herself out the window, she’s doing it to frame Vincent for yet another murder.  In the film however, this perverse motivation gets lost in that big billowing curtain.  Her on-screen death plays like a freakish accident.”

And as we've seen in previous examples on Noir Alley, enforcement of the Production Code was inconsistent.  As is the case with film ratings today, filmmakers may also try to make their own subjective decisions as to what the arbiters will make of their movie and self-edit the film during production so they don't have to make changes later.

[lavenderblue19]

50 minutes ago, cmovieviewer said:

Just to confirm your point, in describing the differences between the book and the film, Eddie states:

“If that scene was a bit confusing to you, there’s a reason: Hollywood’s Production Code did not allow a character to commit suicide as a way of escaping justice.  In Goodis’s novel, it’s clear that when crazily-vindictive Madge hurls herself out the window, she’s doing it to frame Vincent for yet another murder.  In the film however, this perverse motivation gets lost in that big billowing curtain.  Her on-screen death plays like a freakish accident.”

And as we've seen in previous examples on Noir Alley, enforcement of the Production Code was inconsistent.  As is the case with film ratings today, filmmakers may also try to make their own subjective decisions as to what the arbiters will make of their movie and self-edit the film during production so they don't have to make changes later.

Yes, without the quote I wrote that yesterday.Thank You for the exact quote,although I did get some some disagreement or disbelief even though they seem to have done a turn around now  and claim to have felt that way from the start LOL

[JamesJazGuitar]

53 minutes ago, cmovieviewer said:

Just to confirm your point, in describing the differences between the book and the film, Eddie states:

“If that scene was a bit confusing to you, there’s a reason: Hollywood’s Production Code did not allow a character to commit suicide as a way of escaping justice.  In Goodis’s novel, it’s clear that when crazily-vindictive Madge hurls herself out the window, she’s doing it to frame Vincent for yet another murder.  In the film however, this perverse motivation gets lost in that big billowing curtain.  Her on-screen death plays like a freakish accident.”

And as we've seen in previous examples on Noir Alley, enforcement of the Production Code was inconsistent.  As is the case with film ratings today, filmmakers may also try to make their own subjective decisions as to what the arbiters will make of their movie and self-edit the film during production so they don't have to make changes later.

I know Eddie only has so much time,  but it would have been nice if he had added 'and in this case the Code was enforced' (after the part you have in bold) OR was more specific about the Code, in that it didn't allow the showing of a character committing suicide as a way of escaping justice.

Because in The Asphalt Jungle a character commits suicide to escape justice and that film was released only a few years after Dark Passage.    

 

[misswonderly3]

On 7/23/2018 at 9:01 AM, lavenderblue19 said:

Something that I find very interesting about Dark Passage, is that justice thru the courts is never served. We know Vincent is innocent but he's never proven innocent in the courts yet he and Lauren do get to go off into the sunset together, Madge has committed murder, yet she either dies accidentally or by suicide, so she's not punished by the court and the petty hoodlum Baker who threatens to extort money and will probably go on haunting Vincent and Irene forever. ( I guess that's suppose to justify his death, he also knows of Vincent's plan to get to Benton,Arizona and that could catch up with Vincent, so Baker had to be be disposed) Baker dies when he falls while he and Bogart are fighting. Justice is served in Dark Passage, but not by the courts.

We are lead to believe that Irene's father was innocent but he dies in prison convicted of a murder he didn't commit and Vincent being falsely accused of murder, it seems that Dark Passage makes a negative statement about the judicial system. Wonder how Breen felt about that.

As far as Madge's death is concerned, Breen was a strict Catholic and I think that's the reason suicide would not be permitted to be shown as the reason for Madge's death.

It's a good point; Even more than most noirs, Dark Passage seems to be saying that if people get what they deserve based upon their guilt or innocence, it's not because of the police and the American justice system. It just happens that way. (Although there's one exception here; Vince's friend George appeared to be a good person and a good friend. He did not deserve to lose his life, but the evil Madge murdered him ...)

Or, as you put it quite well: "Justice is served in Dark Passage, but not by the courts."

It does seem to be a major theme in this movie.

[Tikisoo]

I just watched 1949's CONSPIRATOR with Liz Taylor & Robert Taylor that fits the criteria: (SPOILER) Robert Taylor's charactor was a spy and killed himself once realizing he was "caught". As police enter the house to arrest him, you hear a gun shot as Liz screams in reaction to what's happened off camera.