Masterful Cinema

Let's be realistic.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I highly recommend this Pre-Code film, an early directorial effort by Mervyn LeRoy. "Three on a Match" is more frank about life than many other films from that early era. Though Bette Davis is in it, she was still an ingénue with a very small part. She makes no major impact, but the real star of the show is Ann Dvorak (pronounced Vorzhak in case you didn't know).  I have only recently gotten acquainted with this exquisite actress and have yet to see a bad performance in the half dozen or so films I've seen of hers.  She was amazing in "Match," just so very natural, believable, one of the best at making not great dialog zing.  And her eyes!!  Wow!  The concept of the film comes from a superstition that grew during WWI about three soldiers lighting cigarettes from the same match being bad luck for one of the three.  This is not a war film. The girls are civilians, who at one point light up cigarettes with one match, recalling that superstition. The three are:  Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis and Joan Blondell (she's also good). What is surprising is how their lives change and how straightforward the film is in depicting one woman's downfall. It's very intense, with a shocking and heartbreaking ending.We get to know three girls as children first and then see them again years later when they reconnect after becoming young women. As children they were very different. As adults their lives take different paths. The film is segmented by yearly dates, jumping ahead every few years to see where they are and how things have changed. The story becomes a bit predictable, but it's still very much worth sticking with because of how honest the portrayals are and how good Dvorak is. She made an even bigger impact not too long after this by playing Paul Muni's sister in Howard Hawks' "Scarface." "Three on a Match" is worth seeing for a view into a short period of early sound films when they approached their subject matter fearlessly, and had more realistic female characters. Once the production code was instated, female roles became more constrained. This is one of the must-see Pre-Code films.

Though I'm a big fan of movies of the 30s and 40s, I was unaware of Ann Dvorak prior to seeing this one. I thought she gave a very realistic performance (for the time), and it's a shame she didn't have a longer career.Others have synopsized the plot in prior reviews, so I won't rehash it. However, I am surprised that no one else has made the connection to the Lindbergh kidnapping that seemed so obvious to me.On March 1, 1932, the young son of America's hero of the day, Charles Lindbergh, was kidnapped. Google the kidnapping and take a look at pictures of the child...the resemblance to the child in "Three On A Match" is striking. And certainly, the audiences of the day would have been well aware of the connection, as the kidnapping was the top news story in the country for months.A fascinating film!

...I'm glad you asked… Pre-Code Hollywood refers to films made after the introduction of sound in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Hays Code censorship guidelines, which went into effect on July 1, 1934. During the Great Depression era, studios - in order to increase box office lowered their moral standards to more realistically depict what was already in newspaper headlines. Movie content (sexuality, violence, drug use) was restricted more by local laws and public opinion than adherence to the Motion Picture Production Code, which generally was ignored by Hollywood filmmakers. After 1934, Hollywood films had to show separate beds, if someone was shot or stabbed, no blood could be shown, if kissing was shown, both parties had to have at least one foot on the floor at all times, etc.Films made pre-Code frequently presented people in suggestive situations, and did not hesitate to display women in scanty attire (in this film you'll see more of Bette Davis than you've seen before). After 1934, a scene such as this would not be shown in a Hollywood film for decades or early TV (think of the separate beds used on I Love Lucy or The Dick Van Dyke Show.) Today, these films are almost quaint to what is seen in even a PG-13 rated film but back then they were adult stories that mirrored real life. And film historians love pre-Code films. The term "Three On A Match" legend has it, was used in the trenches of WWI. It was rumored that if soldiers at night tried to light more than two cigarettes in the dark an enemy sniper would have enough time to take aim and shoot, killing the third person using the match. So… using one match to light three cigarettes became a symbol for bad luck. The truth is "Three On A Match" bad luck was an advertising ploy by Ivar Kreuger whose nickname was The Match King (title of another great WB film)! Ivar Kreuger was the Bernie Madoff of his era. Using a Ponzi-like scheme, he used investors monies to pay stockholders and at one time controlled three fourths of the worlds match business until he lost it all and committed suicide in March of 1932. Let's talk about the stars of this 1932 film, we are first introduced to three school girls (take note of Dawn O'Day she later changed her name to Anne Shirley of Stella Dallas fame), and Virginia Davis who was a star in Walt Disney's first series of silent Alice comedies that mixed live action Alice with animated cartoon characters.) Then we see three adult women who play these kids grown up. Joan Blondell as the flirty Mary who shows her bloomers, smokes with the boys and then ends up in reform school. Ann Dvorak who is pretty, popular and given every advantage of wealth and position but is bored to death. And blonde Bette Davis, the smartest girl in school who works hard but only becomes a stenographer. As for the leading men, Warren William who usually played a captain of industry, a wheeler of great power here is a highly successful lawyer that bores his beautiful wife. Lyle Talbot starts out a charming playboy but his bad character is eventually revealed and he becomes a despicable criminal. Edward Arnold that played heavies in so many Frank Capra films is first seen here plucking hairs from his nose until this Mr. Big needs a welcher squeezed of someone killed. Allen Jenkins and Jack LaRue play gangsters. Seen briefly in the film are Bowery Boy Frankie Darrow; Auntie Em from THE WIZARD OF OZ Clara Blandick; Grant Mitchell as the school principle; and Glenda Farrell as a reform school inmate.This 64 minute film moves fast and it covers a lot of territory in the beginning by using montage sequences. A montage is a technique in film editing, a collection of images, short shots, headlines edited into a sequence with sometimes nostalgic music that briefly shows the passing of time, condensing space and information while propelling the plot forward. Three On A Match is interesting for a many reasons. It represents the kind of film that Warners did best in those years. Fast, cheap and packing a punch with action, pathos, no nonsense, no glamour and lots of underworld. It is also interesting because of the casting. Although Humphrey Bogart plays a thug, he wasn't Mr. Big yet. He was just a run of the mill thug. Ann Dvorak slender and elegant, with a refined beauty, and big, feverishly bright eyes and an air of electric, restless energy seems to have switched characters with Bette Davis or Joan Blondell. She becomes more and more corrupt as the picture wears on until you are convinced she is beyond redemption. Bette and Joan, on the other hand, become more and more saintly.Finally, there are the pre-code shenanigans. For a change, Joan Blondell doesn't sit on the edge of the bed, in her slip, rolling on a pair of stockings. Bette Davis does. This may be the only picture I have ever seen where Bette Davis shamelessly displays her legs, and what a fine set of legs she had.Sadly Ann Dvorak the lead in this film, who could have been a major star after this movie -- confronted the powers at Warner Bros. when she found she was only being paid the same as Buster Phelps the uncredited 6 year old actor playing her son. That fight led to her getting smaller roles, eventually marring English actor Leslie Fenton and moving to Britain to make films there for a while. Most film buffs don't know her name, that is until they see her in SCARFACE or in tonight's film THREE ON A MATCH… you can decide if you think she should be forgotten or was it just bad luck.

Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis are "Three on a Match" in this 1932 precode film also starring Warren William, Humphrey Bogart, and Lyle Talbot. The story concerns three girls who grow up together - one, Vivian (Dvorak) is from a good family and marries a wealthy attorney (William); Mary (Blondell) ends up in reform school and goes into show business when she gets out; and Ruth (Davis) becomes a secretary. The three reconnect in adulthood, but the most successful one, Vivian, is bitterly unhappy. She eventually leaves her husband for a friend (Talbot) of Mary's and becomes a nympho drug addict. Ruth and Mary become concerned for her child and work with the boy's father to get him out of the bad situation.Heavy melodrama with a showy performance by Dvorak. Davis is unbelievably young and very pretty; she has hardly anything to do. Bogart is a thug whose boss is owed money by Talbot - he, too, has s small role. The film is almost like a history lesson - as each year goes by, we see sheet music for the popular song of the day and newspaper headlines.Short and entertaining, it's so interesting to see Bogart and Davis, who would end up on top 50 lists of greatest film stars in history, laboring away at these tiny parts. No one can say they didn't pay their dues.