Marked Woman

Bette Davis leads this film in the type of role she would become famous for, the brassy no nonsense woman who fears no man. Yet underneath that facade there is a vulnerability that a lesser actress would have struggled to portray. We can see that her outward strength is at times an act she puts on to protect herself and that underneath that facade lies a woman who is in over her head. Davis is more than up to the task and shows throughout this film why she became and remained such a big star for as long as she did. Marked Woman is carried on her back and, like Atlas, she is able to support it with ease. 

The story follows five women who work as nightclub hostesses for a club that has just been taken over by crime czar Johnny Vanning (Eduardo Ciannelli). Upon looking over the women Johnny plans on dismissing one of them, Estelle (Mayo Methot), over her looks and age. Mary (Davis) stands up to the gangster and convinces him to keep Estelle on. Some time later Mary is arrested when a man, whom she tries to help flee some gambling debts to Johnny without the ability to pay, turns up dead with her name written on a matchbook in his pocket. Attorney David Graham (Humphrey Bogart) is determined to take Vanning down and use this as leverage to try and force Mary to testify against the gangster but, fearing retaliation, she refuses. Graham puts her on the witness stand anyway but her refusal to testify leads to an acquittal. When Mary’s younger sister Betty (Jane Bryan) comes to visit and ends up dead at Vanning’s hand, Mary finally decides to rally the other girls together to finally take Vanning down for good. 

There isn’t much originality behind the plot of Marked Woman. It doesn’t need it. This is a character piece with the two leads, Davis and Ciannelli, giving some really nuanced performances. The film, despite claims in the credits to the contrary, is based on real life gangster Lucky Luciano and Thomas E. Dewey, the man who took him down.  It’s relatively tame thanks to the time if was made. Had it been made a decade earlier it would have had more of an edge it it. The original treatment, as well as the Liberty series on Luciano that the film is based on, had the women working as prostitutes yet when the film went into production the Hays Code prevented this and it was softened down to nightclub “hostesses,” only hinting at the possibility of things being a bit more seedy. The prostitution ring angle was swapped out for illegal gambling and a murder instead to satisfy the Hays office and get by the censors, too. 

Eduardo Ciannelli is superb in a role that threatens to be generic. He imbues his character with a level of sadness the screenplay lacks, providing a between the lines interpretation of what drives this man. He is threatening and manipulative, yet when things come to a boil in the climax he sensibly orders his men to not go after the women who have banded together to send him to jail. The judge sentencing him offers a threat should any retaliation be taken against he girls yet his sentence is stiff enough to negate that threat. He has done many evil things and is facing a very long sentence and a few more murders won’t do much to that sentence, yet he is willing to let them go unpunished. 

Humphrey Bogart is the sole weak link in this cast as the prosecuting attorney. He is never convincing and is mostly wooden. He seems out of his element here in a rare early heroic role. This becomes painfully obvious in the final moments between him and Bette Davis where he struggles to get any sentences out naturally. He looks like a man trying to remember his lines, not a real person speaking candidly. He feels checked out in this film. Bette Davis is selling the emotions of this confrontation and Bogart is fumbling to convey any real emotion. Incidentally, it was this film that introduced him to his third wife, Mayo Methot. The two married shortly after and fought bitterly until divorcing in 1945. Alcohol and depression eventually led her to an early death in 1951. 

This is a pretty decent gangster film complete with all the trappings and clichés of the era. It suffers from being forced to pull it punches by the Hays Code as well as a weaker performance in a key role. The finale is telegraphed in advance and the ultimate resolution isn’t completely convincing but the solid performance by Bette Davis and the other girls helps smooth out those bumps in the road. The final scene with the girls, victorious yet beaten down, is harrowing and more powerful than anything in the actual trial leading up to it. The girls walk off together into an unknown future, freed from Vanning, but imprisoned in other ways.

Release Date: April 10, 1937

Running Time: 84 minutes

Cast: Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Eduardo Ciannelli

Director: Lloyd Bacon with assistance from Michael Curtiz