''Dark Passage'' (1946) is a

crime novel Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a profession ...

by David Goodis. It was the basis for the 1947 film noir of the same name. The film implements extensive use of the first-person camera technique.

Plot

Vincent Parry, wrongly convicted of murdering his wife, escapes from prison and is taken in by Irene Jansen, a wealthy socialite and artist with an interest in his case who becomes bent on clearing his name. Helped by a friendly cabbie, Parry gets a new face from a plastic surgeon, thereby enabling him to dodge the authorities and find his wife's real killer. He has difficulty staying hidden, in part because Madge Rapf, the spiteful woman whose testimony sent him to prison, and who has an unhealthy interest in Irene, keeps stopping by.

Film and television

* '' Dark Passage'' was adapted for film in 1947, with a screenplay by

Delmer Daves Delmer Lawrence Daves (July 24, 1904 – August 17, 1977) was an American screenwriter, film director and film producer. He worked in many Film genre, genres, including film noir and war film, warfare, but he is best known for his Western (genre ...

, who also directed. It reunited Bogart and Bacall onscreen, and co-starred

Agnes Moorehead Agnes Robertson Moorehead (December 6, 1900April 30, 1974) was an American actress. In a career spanning five decades, her credits included work in radio, stage, film, and television.Obituary '' Variety'', May 8, 1974, page 286. Moorehead was th ...

and Bruce Bennett. * '' Tales from the Crypt'' featured an episode loosely based on the film, entitled "You, Murderer".

Legal issues

The copyright status of ''Dark Passage'' was the subject of a dispute between Goodis' estate and

United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...

Television. The Goodis estate claimed that the UA series '' The Fugitive'' constituted copyright infringement. United Artists claimed that the work had fallen into the public domain under the terms of the

Copyright Act of 1909 The Copyright Act of 1909 () was a landmark statute in United States statutory copyright law. It went into effect on July 1, 1909. The 1909 Act was repealed and superseded by the Copyright Act of 1976, which went into effect on January 1, 1978; ...

because it had been first published as a serial in ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influ ...

'', and that Goodis never obtained a separate copyright on the work. In ''Goodis v. United Artists Television, Inc.'', 425 F.2d 397, the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory covers the states of Connecticut, New York (state), New York, and Vermont, and it has ap ...

limited the so-called " Doctrine of indivisibility", explaining that it was a judicial doctrine related only to standing, and should not operate to completely deprive a claimant of his copyright.

Current edition

The novel is currently available in a Library of America edition, ''David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and '50s'', edited by Robert Polito, , .

References

External links

''Dark Passage'' profile at IMDb
1946 American novels American crime novels Novels first published in serial form Works originally published in The Saturday Evening Post American novels adapted into films Works about plastic surgery American novels adapted into television shows Julian Messner books {{1940s-crime-novel-stub