Dark Passage (Film Ink) [Paperback]

David Goodis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003 | Series: Film Ink

David Goodis is one of the most admired American noir writers of the last century. In this book, first published in 1946, Vince Parry, sentenced to life imprisonment in San Quentin for the murder of his wife, escapes. He tries to find out who framed him in an attempt to prove his innocence. He is harboured by a woman he doesn't trust, he is a fugitive from justice in the depths of despair. Parry's last throw is a desperate gamble to hide his identity from the law. Filmed in 1947 by Delmer Daves at Warner Brothers and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall - it became a classic noir movie. Goodis then worked in Hollywood for Warner Brothers but in 1950 he returned to his native Philadelphia and continued to write paperback novels about man's inexorable decline into despair. He died in obscurity in 1967.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Film noir fans will immediately recognize this title as the basis for the 1947 film starring Bogart and Bacall. The plot follows protagonist Vince Parry's escape from San Quentin in order to find out who framed him for the murder of his wife. Goodis is always a fun read.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"the mystery man of hardboiled fiction...a poet of the losers, transforming...melodramas into traumatic visions of trapped lives." Geoffrey O' Brien, Hardboiled America; "No writer before or since has had such a magnificent obsession with the shadows cast by the victim, the failure, the drop-out, the has-been." Mike Wallington

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Prion Books Ltd (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853755087
• ISBN-13: 978-1853755088
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,431,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An optimistic David Goodis - wow!, November 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dark Passage (Film Ink Series) (Paperback)

What makes this novel unique in the Goodis canon is that, while as dark, detailed, layered and sad as Goodis' later work, "Dark Passage" manages to project a sense of hope absent in his post-Hollywood novels. Where the later material, as impressionistic and wonderful as it is, presents characters with no future, a grim past, and a long-shot at momentary, hollow gain (missed, of course), Parry has a tangible, worthwhile goal: freedom. Because he believes he can achieve that goal, meets people who believe he can achieve it and, without question, deserves to achieve it, we ache for him at every obstruction in the road.

Still, Parry is one of Goodis' saddest creations -- a perpetual victim who, in spite of good intentions, finds himself in a vicious, dark vortex -- mostly through his own passiveness. The scenes flashing back to his relationship with his ex-wife are as depressing and heart-wrenching as any Goodis ever wrote. Unlike later Goodis characters, Parry realizes that he must re-make himself both inside and out to have any chance of escaping either of his former incarcerations. Therein lies the balancing act in this novel: the story of his attempt to escape San Quentin (an imprisonment for which is he not to blame) is supplemental to his attempt to escape the real-life traps brought on by his past behavior/demeanor. An exciting & often funny novel (people don't often mention how funny even the darkest Goodis novels can be).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Goodis is Great But This Isn't As Good As "The Burglar", February 16, 2002

By 

POP "Noir By Night" (Hamsterdam) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Passage (Mass Market Paperback)

After reading about Goodis and reading his hard to find "The Burglar"-and really liking it, I went out and bought all of the David Goodis books I could get my hands on. "Dark Passage" is the second of his books I've read and after the intensity and surrealness of "The Burglar" I have to say that I found "Dark Passage" a little disappointing.Still a good read but somewhat frustrating in its pacing. Goodis is one of the greats of noir and anything by him is worth reading ....I'd just start with a different one than "Dark Passage" and work my way back to it.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars perhaps the best from David Goodis.., December 29, 2002

By 

lazza (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Passage (Mass Market Paperback)

'Dark Passage' by David Goodis, perhaps best known by the film adaptation (starring Bogart and Bacall), is the best of several David Goodis novels I've read and yet, most puzzling, it is the only one presently out of print. I can certainly recommend searching far and wide for a used copy because it is an excellent example of 1940s crime 'noir' writing, as good as anything Chandler, Cain or Thompson have dished out (and these authors have all written great stuff).

In 'Dark Passage' we have an escaped con in San Francisco. He gets involved with a mysterious young woman who helps him in both staying on the run and finding out who indeed did the crime (the murder of his no good wife) for which he was falsely accused of. The book is written in the first person (..in typical Goodis fashion), and so we get "under the skin" of our leading man. Perhaps in this book (compared to the others I've read) Goodis does the best job of interweaving strange characters into a plausible story, with the end result being an ending which is both surprising and gratifying.

Bottom line: a must read if you can find a copy. Brilliant.