Dark Passage is a really contrived movie with some of the most unbelivable coincidences in film, and one of the more ridiculous Hays code inspired endings (to resolve the plot without our hero killing anyone and still keep the happy ending), but its got Bogart at his prime, Elisha Cook Jr at his creepiest/wimpiest, and some great old SFO location shooting- not to mention Bacall’s awesome two story apartment.
But its an otherwise normal 40’s crime film, except for the scene where cabbie Tom D’Andrea takes Bogart to the underworld doctor. The cab driver character is really hard to peg- is he in love with Bogart, stoned, or just a creepy underworld dude? Their exchanges are odd to say the least. Then the kindly yet strange doc explains to Bogart what’s gonna happen, and adds that if he didn’t like him, he could make him look like “a bulldog… or a monkey”. Followed by a scene that predates those more commonly found in 60’s head movies, where Bogart while under sedation has this surreal swirling montage in his head with various people he’s encountered popping in and out - very weird.
(As an aside, The Simpsons did something like this, although I forgot the character and anything about it, other than an old woman popping in to say something about “Joe”- is this referring to Dark Passage I wonder, or something else?)
Also, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-moon Marigolds is your otherwise normal tale of a 70’s dysfunctional family, except for a scene at a school assembly where an odd looking girl unseen in the film before or after goes on and on in gleefully disturbing detail about how she skinned and boiled the cat that she has reconstructed the bones of for her science project. Or something like that.
While I watching The Last King of Scotland, I was wondering why the hell they were intercutting scenes of the porn film Deep Throat in certain places. It’s eventually followed-up, but damn if that wasn’t a headscratcher.
The guy in the dog costume in The Shining. The book explains the backstory behind him, greatly reducing the disorienting effect of his appearance in the film.
Manhunter has a scene with the serial killer taking the blind woman to experience hands-on a tiger that’s been anaesthatized for some dental work. I thought it was just director Michael Mann showing off with an indulgent bit of photogenic oddness.
But damned if that scene doesn’t appear in Thomas Harris’ book Red Dragon. Faked ME out!
I’m still not sure what that scene was doing in there.
Runner-up: Woody Woodpecker explains Space Flight in a cartoon built into the Robert Heinlein/George Pal movie Destination Moon
It made sense to me in the book…Francis wanted to show her the tiger, that she could never have seen due to being blind. But this was even better–getting up close, touching it. I guess it is kind of random, but it was such a cool image/idea for me.
Or how about the scene with the crazy lady driver who keeps hitting deer in The Straight Story? I knew David Lynch couldn’t make it through an entire movie without at least one of his trademark WTF flourishes.
I don’t know if it’s a reference toi Dark Passage, but the scene you’re thinking of is during a “flashback” episode when Homer and Marge relate the story of Lisa’s first word. Bart (as a young child) is very upset and has people’s faces swirling above him and random lines they said earlier. One is the clown bed laughing, one is Rod saying “Iron helps us play!” and the third is Grandma Flanders who, being more than slightly senile, says “Hello, Joe!” when introduced to Bart.
A similar scene happens in “Marge vs. The Monorail” when she is driving to North Haverbrook. She has Lyle Lanley saying “I’ve sold monorails to odgenville, Brockton, and North Haverbrook!”, Apu saying “Is there a chance the track could bend?”, and Homer saying “I call the big one Bitey.”
Could someone explain this? I just rewatched the movie the other day (haven’t read the book) and that short scene confused me more than ever.
The tunnel trip in Willy Wonka seems out of place. Though the story has dark undercurrents, it is mostly a children’s story, so why a scene with such intense imagery?
In the book, the owner of the hotel during the '40s or '50s is a bisexual man with a broad sadistic streak. He’s married, but keeps a gay lover on the side who’s completely devoted to him. The owner uses this as an excuse to emotionally torture the poor guy at every opportunity. The abused lover finally snaps one night during a costume party, where his paramour viciously embarasses him in front of the entire crowd. I don’t quite remember what he does to his cruel boyfriend, or even if it was ever explicitly stated in the book. There’s one scene during the novel’s climax (pretty much where he shows up in the movie) where Danny sees his ghost, who’s still acting out that last night at the costume party, and I recall an implication that he… uh, got a little “bitey” with him during oral sex.
Guanolad, that’s a classic for all, even though it is a story of a teen girl. I think Joanne Woodward was maybe a bit over the top, but great, and both of the girls were really great as well, and the look of a poor 70’s area I think was perfectly captured. A bit of a downer, but good.
Granted horror movies like Rosemary’s Baby are pretty much bizarre from the get go but what was up with that Japanese tourist taking photographs at the end? Was Polanski trying to strike some sort of dissonant with the film’s viewers by purposely injecting a broad comic stereotype into a horrific and intense scene or was it just a mindless (and now politically incorrect) gag* he tossed in?
*Like Polanski’s asking us to imagine this guy back in Japan showing his photos and saying:
“Here’s the Statute of Liberty. Here’s Times Square. Here’s the birth of Antichrist.”
Hence, it was cut from the original theatrical release. You must have seen the “Redux” (director’s cut) version, which is too bad, because IMHO the shorter version is much better, for reasons like the one you cited.
The blind woman seems to be falling in love with Francis, whom she can’t see (heh) is a monster. At the vet’s, she runs her hands all over and tactilely explores the sedated tiger - including, in the book, its penis. This excites Francis (in a good way) and he and the blind woman have sex, which he likes a lot. Under ordinary circumstances, the tiger would kill her in a heartbeat. Similarly, Francis is driven to kill others, but she is - at least for the moment - safe with him. Even when he fakes his own death, he can’t bring himself to kill her (plus, by letting her live, she helps corroborate the “cover story” of his alleged death).
Francis is like the tiger: usually extraordinarily dangerous, but a Beast “tamed” by Beauty.
If you can bear with me for a moment and consider the typical Monty Python silliness as their baseline for “normal”, then I would offer this: In their last film, “The Meaning of Life”, there was a brief “interlude” which was way-out trippin’, far beyond the “normal” tone of the rest of the movie.
It involved a fish that went wherever I did go. Don’t ask.
