DVD Review
Three On A Match, Joan
Blondell, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Warner Brothers, 1932
“Cocaine’s for horses, not
for men, they say it’s going to kill you but they won’t say when.” from an old
blues song. Yah, although the theme of this film is not about cocaine per se (and it is not explicitly
mentioned and only introduced by a knowing low-life nose candy mimic from newly-
minted gangster (stage gangster, that is) Humphrey Bogart) that line can serve
as a metaphor for what this film is about. In theory it is about superstition
(the old chestnut probably no used much anymore about the fate of the last of
third on a match, an old wives tale but just in case, beware, okay. But really
it is about going from riches to rags quick when that nose candy puts the
squeeze on you.
Despite my plaintive plea the
three gals in this story Mary, Ruth, and Vivian who have known each other since
grade school (which we are aware of from the beginning shots that set
the story line up) play this devilish game out when they met later in life
during the Great Depression. Naturally poor little distracted, alienated, and
bored rich girl Vivian was the last and thus fated to die first. And she does,
after leaving her husband (and child in the end) for some hustling Dan who
shows her the bright lights of the city, and introduces her to the free life,
and that wicked cocaine, falls on hard times and, in an act of contrition saves
her son from some evil ransom scheme by some mobsters who old Dan owes money to
by committing suicide. Yah, leave that girl stuff alone. And you already know
what I said about that match thing if it ever comes up.
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