A compact, bittersweet love story, Tay Garnett’s One Way Passage is a pre-code dramedy that balances desperation and romantic attraction in ironic and most memorable fashion.
The Production: 4/5
A compact, bittersweet love story, Tay Garnett’s One Way Passage is a pre-code dramedy that balances desperation and romantic attraction in ironic and most memorable fashion. William Powell and Kay Francis play a unique pair of lovers, each facing his and her own imminent mortality with heads held high, but the specter of death is always looming in the back of the audience’s imaginations.
Convicted, escaped murderer Dan Hardesty (William Powell) meets and falls instantly for the striking beauty Joan Ames (Kay Francis) in a cocktail bar in Hong Kong right before he’s apprehended by dogged San Francisco police detective Steve Burke (Warren Hymer) who’s intent on taking him back to San Quentin to face his hanging sentence. The duo also finds itself on the same steamer back to the States, and during the four-week voyage home, Dan has several opportunities to make his escape from Burke who’s being distracted by a romance with international con woman Barrel House Betty masquerading as “The Countess,” but his love for the alluring and fragile Joan, unknown to him facing a terminal diagnosis from her doctor (Frederick Burton), keeps him on the boat and near her.
Tay Garnett directs this briefly bittersweet love story (running time is a mere, astonishing 67-minutes) based on an Oscar-winning original story by Robert Lord fashioned into a screenplay by Wilson Mizner and Joseph Jackson. His direction is concise yet flavorful with a focus on a broken drinking glasses motif that happens several times in the film leading to a memorable fadeout and sustaining the balance of moods featuring alluring romance and inevitable tragic ends with a light touch. With such a brief running time, no scene stays past its welcome though Frank McHugh’s drunken antics as friend to Dan and con man extraordinaire Skippy do begin to test one’s patience with his constant swilling of booze (drunkenness that was once a reliable laugh getter now doesn’t play so well) and that smug little laugh of his as he usually (but not always) makes suckers of his marks. A brief stopover in Honolulu might have been an opportunity to extend the film with a little picturesque sightseeing as the lovers take advantage of the tropical lushness (though Joan’s health begins to fade more noticeably by this stage of the journey), but the script and director Garnett resist the temptation. The dramatic irony of the situation as the audience knows about each character’s upcoming fates before either of them becomes aware of the other’s travails is deliciously applied to keep interest tuned to the maximum.
Even though the film was made in 1932, William Powell was already a master of smooth, seductive élan, and his Dan Hardesty makes for a most appealing protagonist. Kay Francis matches him moment to moment in appeal as the wealthy heiress determined to live her remaining time to its fullest with no regrets. Their “meet cute” in the film’s opening moments as they simultaneously spill Paradise cocktails in a Hong Kong bar begins their fateful attraction, and their every moment together afterwards evokes the kind of blissful romance that the movies of the era were famous for. Aline MacMahon gets some prime opportunities to bounce from diamonds to dustbins as she alternates between being the Countess and assuming her real persona of Barrel House Betty. Warren Hymer reaches a career high as the detective who realizes his own humanity apart from the rigors of his job’s code of conduct. And watch for the unbilled Roscoe Karns as the friendly bartender who observes all but says very little.
Video: 4.5/5
3D Rating: NA
The film’s original 1.37:1 theatrical aspect ratio is faithfully presented in this 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. The main titles and some B-unit location photography look a bit soft, but most of the film is sharp and appealing with a very good grayscale to offer us black levels of fine depth and inkiness. The movie has been divided into 28 chapters.
Audio: 4.5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono sound mix offers a fine aural experience. Though the deep, loud sounds of the engine room offer pretty impressive fidelity for a film of this age, there are some scenes that feature soft hiss in the background (the Hawaii scenes in particular). The dialogue, though, has been expertly recorded and has been mixed with music and sound effects making for pleasurable listening.
Special Features: 3/5
Theatrical Trailer (2:12, HD)
Radio Broadcasts: Lux Radio Theater (59:30) and Screen Director’s Playhouse (29:58) both feature William Powell recreating his screen performance. Kay Francis joins him in the Lux 1939 broadcast.
Buggin’ Around (20:18, HD): 1932 two-reel comedy surprisingly featuring silent clown Fatty Arbuckle.
A Great Big Bunch of You (6:48, HD): 1932 animated short.
Overall: 4/5
Tay Garnett’s One Way Passage features a very engaging, bittersweet romance between William Powell and Kay Francis that’s surprisingly over almost before it’s begun. This 1932 pre-code dramedy has been spruced up with video and audio that makes this Oscar-winning movie something worth seeing and hearing. Recommended!
One Way Passage [Blu-Ray]
32% Off $21.99 $14.99
Matt has been reviewing films and television professionally since 1974 and has been a member of Home Theater Forum’s reviewing staff since 2007, his reviews now numbering close to three thousand. During those years, he has also been a junior and senior high school English teacher earning numerous entries into Who’s Who Among America’s Educators and spent many years treading the community theater boards as an actor in everything from Agatha Christie mysteries to Stephen Sondheim musicals.
Post Disclaimer
Some of our content may contain marketing links, which means we will receive a commission for purchases made via those links. In our editorial content, these affiliate links appear automatically, and our editorial teams are not influenced by our affiliate partnerships. We work with several providers (currently Skimlinks and Amazon) to manage our affiliate relationships. You can find out more about their services by visiting their sites.
Similar threads