Directed by Lloyd Bacon and Michael Curtiz (uncredited).
1937. Not Rated, 84 minutes.
Cast:
Bette Davis
Humphrey Bogart
Lola Lane
Isabel Jewell
Mayo Methot
Eduardo Ciannelli
Rosalind Marquis
Jane Bryan
Allen Jenkins
Mary Dwight (Bette Davis) and her four compatriots-Gabby (Lola Lane), Estelle (Mayo Methot), Florrie (Rosalind Marquis) and Emmy Lou (Isabel Jewell)-work as “hostesses” (a Production Code euphemism for prostitutes) in a Manhattan nightclub that’s just been converted into a clip joint run by mob boss Johnny Vanning (Eduardo Ciannelli). Their job is to get the out of town rubes to spend as much as possible in the club for which they are rewarded with money (10% of which they kick back to Vanning) and protection should there be a pinch.
Not too happy about it but used to the good life it provides they acquiesce until one night when Mary discovers that one of those out-of-towners has passed a rubber check. Warning him to skip town and giving him her address so he can return the cab fare she lent him she finds herself in the thick of trouble when he turns up dead in an alley with the address still in his pocket. The cops pull all the girls in for questioning including Mary’s kid sister Betty (Jane Bryan) who happens to be visiting for the day from college. Crusading prosecutor David Graham (Humphrey Bogart) attempts to get the women to implicate Vanning but they refuse until Mary is pressured with a veiled death threat to perjure herself to clear Vanning of a murder charge.
Disillusioned Betty drops out of college and one night accompanies Emmy Lou, who has become involved with Vanning against the other girls advice, to a party at his penthouse. During an argument where Vanning tries to force her to “entertain” a lech he strikes her causing her death. He covers up the crime and denies any knowledge of the girl’s whereabouts when confronted by Mary. Livid Mary warns him that if she finds out that Betty has been hurt she’ll get him “Even if I have to crawl back from my grave to do it!”
Heading to the law Mary tries to get D.A. Bogart to do something but after her previous double dealing he is reluctant to help until word arrives of the discovery of Betty’s body in the river. He then approaches the other hostesses who at first decline to say anything out of fear, the resigned Gabby telling Mary she had once loved a man whom she convinced to walk away from Vanning and who was murdered when he tried.
But when Vanning gets wind of what Mary is attempting to do he shows up at her apartment with a couple of henchmen who beat and disfigure her turning her into the “Marked Woman” of the title and the women band together to bring Vanning down.
Warners more than any other studio during Hollywood’s Golden Age filmed stories that were ripped from the headlines such as this. Based on the real life pursuit by Manhattan D.A. Thomas Dewey of crime czar Lucky Luciano who was brought down by the testimony of numerous prostitutes and madams in his syndicate. It’s a sordid tale and though impactful doesn’t have a pretty ending, but it’s well worth the time it takes to watch its story unfold.
A couple of side stories:
During the making of this film Humphrey Bogart, not yet a top level star, met Mayo Methot-at the time a well-known and respected character actress and a considerably bigger name than his, who would become his third wife. Their union was, to put it mildly, stormy. They were known throughout the Hollywood community and newspapers as the Battling Bogarts and his nickname for her was Sluggy. Both liked their liquor far more than was good for them, add in Mayo’s fragile mental state-she once stabbed him in the shoulder during an argument-and intense jealousy and the marriage was on borrowed time from its inception. They struggled along until Bogart meet Lauren Bacall during the making of To Have and Have Not and Mayo realized she had lost him. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic she abandoned her career, which had hit a rough patch because of her volubility, moved back to her native Oregon and steadily drank herself to death by 1951, aged only 47 but looking decades older.
While there is plenty of female unity onscreen there was considerable girl power behind it in the person of Bette Davis. Never a shrinking violet this was her first film after a high profile court fight with Warner Brothers. Having battled her way from first being considered nothing more than an insipid “little brown wren” to a vividly intense actress with one Oscar already under her belt (for 1935’s Dangerous-though that was a consolation prize for her fierce performance the year before as the slatternly Mildred in Of Human Bondage) she had been shunted from one lackluster film to another until after a sub par version of The Maltese Falcon named Satan Met a Lady Jack Warner tried to cast her as a lady lumberjack (!) in a stinker called God’s Country and the Woman.
Feed up and frustrated she turned the role down flat and stormed out of Warner’s office turning a deaf ear when he said he had just optioned a novel that hadn’t been released named Gone with the Wind that had a great part for her if she did God’s Country. Replying “I bet it’s a pip!” she departed and signed to do two films in England effectively breaching her Warners contract and setting the stage for their skirmish in the British courts. Though she fought like a tiger trying to convey that she felt that if she continued in the junk that the studio was casting her in her career would be over the lawyers framed the suit as though she were a greedy actress just looking for more money.
She lost the case but won the war. When she returned to the studio Jack Warner, now fully aware of her commitment to pursuit of a quality career, paid all her court costs and starting with this picture cast her in roles that in short order made her the queen of the lot. So successful were her films and the revenue they generated so great through the next decade she was referred to as the Fourth Warner Brother.
Not that she became a complacent little pussycat with success, during this film when the makeup department put a small flattering bandage on her after she was supposedly maimed she left the studio during lunch break, went to her doctor, told him what was supposed to have happened to her character and returned to the studio so believably bandaged that the guard at the gate called Warner and told him Miss Davis had been in an accident. When Warner showed up on the set Davis confronted him saying “If you don’t shoot me like this, you’re not filming me today!” For the rest of her life she was famous for her tenacity and drive and we all benefited with dozens of memorable performances.
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