Marked Woman **** (1937, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell, Eduardo Ciannelli, Mayo Methot, Jane Bryan) – Classic Movie Review 2,728

In the stalwart 1937 film noir crime drama Marked Woman, Bette Davis shows feisty form as a club hostess or ‘party girl’, whose sister is accidentally killed during one of the unsavoury parties. Humphrey Bogart co-stars as a crusading district attorney. 

‘I know all the angles and I’m smart enough to keep one step ahead of them until I get enough to pack it all in and live on easy street for the rest of my life.’

Bette Davis’s first film after she was suspended by her employers Warner Bros when she went off to England and unsuccessfully tried to file a law suit to break her studio contract is ironically the very kind of better script she had been demanding.

In director Lloyd Bacon’s stalwart, credible and reasonably distinguished 1937 film noir crime melodrama Marked Woman, the feisty star shows particularly peppy form as Mary Dwight, a ‘clip joint’ club hostess or ‘party girl’, whose innocent sister is accidentally murdered during one of the unsavoury parties.

Humphrey Bogart co-stars as crusading district attorney David Graham, who talks Mary into shopping her gangster boss Johnny Vanning (Eduardo Ciannelli)  and testifying against him.

Marked Woman is an entertaining, surprisingly little-known movie. The fine cast is well served by fast-paced direction, realistic tone, atmospheric photography and a good production. In the effective cast, Isabel Jewell, Mayo Methot, Lola Lane and Rosalind Marquis are the other hostesses, while newcomer Jane Bryan plays Davis’s younger sister, Betty.

Davis’s character is literally a Marked Woman in the movie, after Vanning’s boys beat her up and slash her cheek with a cross. Robert Rossen and Abem Finkel wrote their original screenplay (with Seton I Miller) from newspaper stories of the trial of gangster and vice czar Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano. He was finally jailed in 1937 for running New York prostitution rackets, after maltreated hookers working in one of his brothels informed on him to the police. Ciannelli even looks like Lucky Luciano.

Also in the cast are Allen Jenkins, Ben Welden, Henry O’Neill, John Litel, John Sheehan, Kenneth Harlan, Raymond Hatton, Milton Kibbee, Damian O’Flynn, Carlos San Martin, William B Davidson, Robert Strange, James Robbins, Arthur Aylesworth, Sam Wren and Edwin Stanley.

The film was a major popular box office success for Davis and for Warner Bros.

The ever obsessive and difficult Davis left the set when the Warner makeup department gave her dainty bandages for the hospital scene where her character is attacked by mobsters. She drove to her own doctor and asked him to bandage her as he would a badly beaten woman. Returning to the set, she declared: ‘You shoot me this way, or not at all!’

Although Davis lost her law suit, she gained a lot of press coverage. She was reported to be pleased with the film’s script and Jack L Warner was said to be pleased by the public’s reaction in favour of her.

Bette Davis won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1937.

Bogart and Methot met on the set and fell in love during production, and married in 1938 after he divorced his second wife, Mary Philips.

The cast are Bette Davis as Mary Dwight/ Mary Strauber, Humphrey Bogart as District Attorney David Graham, Lola Lane as Dorothy “Gabby” Marvin, Isabel Jewell as Emmy Lou Eagan, Eduardo Ciannelli as Johnny Vanning, Rosalind Marquis as Florrie Liggett, Mayo Methot as Estelle Porter, Jane Bryan as Betty Strauber, Allen Jenkins as Louie, John Litel as Vanning’s lawyer Gordon,  Ben Welden as Charlie Delaney, Damian O’Flynn as Ralph Krawford, Henry O’Neill as District Attorney Arthur Sheldon, Raymond Hatton as Vanning’s Lawyer, Carlos San Martín as Head Waiter, William B Davidson as Bob Crandall, Kenneth Harlan as Sugar Daddy Eddie, Robert Strange as George Beler, Archie Robbins as Bell Captain, Arthur Ayelsworth as Sheriff John Truble, John Sheehan as Vincent, Sam Wren as Mac, Edwin Stanley as Detective Casey, Alan Davis as Henchman. Allen Mathews as Henchman, Guy Usher as Detective Ferguson, Gordon Hart as Judge at 1st trial,Pierre Watkin as Judge at 2nd trial, Herman Marks as Joe, and Ralph Dunn as Court Clerk at 1st trial.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,728

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Movie Queens: Bette by Graeme Jukes.