MARKED WOMAN (1937)

A lively Warners crime melodrama, the first movie that Bette Davis made for the studio after she went on "strike" to get better roles. Technically, she lost the battle, but Warners did start doing better by her, and she won an Oscar in 1938 for JEZEBEL. This movie is not Oscar caliber, but it is a fine example of a genre in which the studio excelled. It's a well-written, well-acted gangster movie with a twist. Davis is Mary Dwight, hostess at a "clip joint," working to put money aside to send her younger sister (Jane Bryan) to college. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a clip joint is a night club where "customers are regularly overcharged" or otherwise "clipped" of some extra dough. The "hostesses" here are clearly prostitutes, though this is of course glossed over by the Production Code script. Davis rooms with other hostesses, and they all work for brutal mobster Eduardo Ciannelli. When customer Damian O'Flynn is murdered by Ciannelli's men, Davis agrees to work with cop Humphrey Bogart to get the goods on her boss, but she is scared into silence. Later, her sister, who drifts into Davis' line of work, is killed and, despite a savage beating that scars her for life, Davis and her fellow hostesses vow to bring Ciannelli to justice. Davis and Bogart are both very good; there is a romantic spark, but they both realize that even a friendship is impossible because of the very different worlds they inhabit. Warners' stable of strong supporting players is in evidence: Allen Jenkins has an amusing comic relief scene; Lola Lane, Mayo Methot (who would marry Bogart after the making of this movie), and Isabel Jewell are the hostesses; Henry O'Neill and John Litel are also featured. The ending, a show of feminine/feminist solidarity, with the women walking away from Bogart's world to their own lives, is effective. [TCM]