What’s on TCM: March 2013

Happy March, everyone!  Hopefully you’ve all been enjoying 31 Days of Oscars, I know I have.  But we already have just a few days left of that before it’s back to the standard TCM schedule.  Greer Garson will be the Star of the Month for March and her movies can be seen every Monday night this month.  TCM will also be shining the spotlight on director Roberto Rossellini every Friday night in March.  Now, let’s take a look at the rest of the schedule:

It’s Love I’m After (1937)

Basil Underwood (Leslie Howard) and Joyce Arden (Bette Davis) are two actors known for their chemistry together on stage.  Off-stage, the two of them are in love with each other, but have quite a volatile relationship.  They’ve  been wanting to get married and have planned to do so plenty of times, but for various reasons, it’s never actually happened.  But after finishing a performance of “Romeo and Juliet,” they decide once and for all that they’re really going to make it happen this time.  However, during their performance that night, heiress Marcia West (Olivia de Havilland) was in the audience and she fell deeply in love with Basil.

After the show, Marcia went backstage to tell Basil what his performance meant to her and decides that Basil is her ideal man.  However, her fiance Henry (Patric Knowles) isn’t too thrilled with this and goes to see Basil himself.  Henry asks Basil to come out to her home and act like a total heel so she’ll get over her infatuation with him.  Basil agrees, much to Joyce’s dismay.  Once Basil arrives, he puts on his worst behavior and is shocked to find that Marcia loves him anyway.  Not only that, he quickly begins to enjoy her adoration.

When you think of Leslie Howard, you generally think of movies like The Scarlet Pimpernel, Romeo and Juliet, and Gone With the Wind.  He’s definitely not the first guy you think of when you hear the words “screwball comedy.”  But did you know that Leslie Howard could be really funny?  And by “really funny,” I mean downright hilarious.  Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland also aren’t generally remembered for being in comedies, but they both prove to be quite funny here.  I’d seen Olivia and Leslie together in Gone With the Wind, Bette and Olivia together in a few other movies, and Bette and Leslie together in other movies, so I really loved getting to see the three of them together and doing something so different for all of them.  Why this movie isn’t better remembered for any of them is beyond me, because it’s witty, well-acted, and fast paced; an absolute delight.

So Big! (1932)

As a young girl, it looks like Selina Peake (Barbara Stawnyck) has got the life.  Her father is well off and he sends her to one of the best finishing schools in Chicago.  That all changes when her father suddenly dies and leaves her with no money to support herself.  With some help from her friends’ father, she gets a job as a school teacher in a small farming community outside of Chicago.  She moves in with the Pooles, a family of farmers.  Their son Roelf Pool (Dick Winslow as a child, George Brent as an adult) is too busy working on the farm to attend school, so Selina tutors him when he has time.  Roelf develops a bit of a crush on Selina and becomes very jealous when she falls in love with Pervus De Jong, another farmer, and marries him.

Selina and Pervus soon have a son, Dirk (Dickie Moore as a child, George Brent as an adult).  Selina wants Dirk to grow up to be able to do all the things she wasn’t able to.  When her husband dies, she continues to work hard on the farm to make that happen and she does it all alone.  Death also pays a visit to the Pool family and Roelf’s mother also dies, prompting him to leave home.  The years fly by and Roelf has become the talk of the art world as a sculptor in Europe and Dirk has recently graduated from college with a degree in architecture.  But Dirk isn’t especially fond of being an architect, and when he begins seeing a married woman who offers to get him a job as a bond salesman for her husband’s company, he takes her up on the offer.

Even though Dirk quickly works his way up to assistant manager and is making much more money than he was as an architect, Selina can’t help but be a little disappointed that her son doesn’t have the job she always dreamed he would have.  One day, he meets artist Dallas O’Mara (Bette Davis) and instantly falls in love with her.  Although Dallas also likes Dirk, but she won’t marry him because she prefers people who look rugged, like they’ve really lived and worked and suffered.  Eventually, Roelf makes a triumphant return to America and to Dirk’s surprise, finds out that Roelf and Dallas know each other and that she is planning to bring him to see his mother.  A big reason Roelf wanted to come home was to thank Selina for helping him become the person he now is.

So Big! isn’t one of my favorites.  A lot of the shifts in time were pretty abrupt and jarring, but I liked it well enough and it’s quite interesting in some respects.  Considering that Stella Dallas went on to become one of Barbara Stanwyck’s most definitive movies, it’s interesting to look at this as something of an early precursor to Stella Dallas.  Only it’s kind of like Stella Dallas in reverse.  Instead of a lower class girl aspiring to be part of the upper class and sacrifices everything for her child, it’s an upper class girl who becomes a farmer’s wife and works hard to give her child everything.  It’s also interesting to see a young Barbara Stanwyck crossing paths with a young Bette Davis.  Unfortunately, their characters don’t actually interact with each other, which is too bad, but it’s exciting just to get to see the two of them in the same movie together.

Fashions of 1934

What do you do when the investment firm you own goes under?  Why, naturally you decide to get into the fashion game!  Well, at least that’s what Sherwood Nash (William Powell) does.  When he meets aspiring fashion designer Lynn Mason (Bette Davis), Sherwood, Lynn, and Sherwood’s partner Snap (Frank McHugh) decide to start making copies of designs by famous designers and selling them to discount shops for a fraction of the cost.  When the owners of shops that sell the real deals find out about this, they want to put a stop to it, but Nash smooth talks them into selling his knock-offs, too.  Not only that, he gets them to send them to Paris to better copy the designs.

To get in to see the designs, Lynn pretends to be interested in buying something while Snap stealthily takes pictures.  But when their film gets confiscated, they have to come up with another plan.  By pure chance, they find out that the famous designer Oscar Baroque (Reginald Owen) turns to old costume design books for inspiration.  So they get some costume design books and let Lynn design some pieces based on what she finds in the books, then forge famous designers’ signatures to them.  The stores back in New York buy the designs up like hotcakes, but Sherwood can’t resist an opportunity to make money.  When he meets a man with an abundance of ostrich feathers, he gets an idea.  He buys up the feathers and goes to see Baroque’s fiancée Grand Duchess Alix (Verree Teasdale).  He knows Alix is no Grand Duchess, she’s really just Mabel from Hoboken.

Since Alix doesn’t want Sherwood to tell Baroque who she really is, he blackmails her into convincing Baroque to design a musical show full of ostrich feathered clothes that Alix could star in.  He agrees and the show is a big success, so then he decides to open his own boutique.  But Lynn is getting fed up with Sherwood’s schemes.  Also, she’s fallen in love with him and is jealous of all the attention he’s giving Alix.  Even though her designs are once again hugely popular at the boutique, the idea of running off with Jimmy the piano player sounds pretty appealing to Lynn.  But by now, Baroque has found out about the forged designs and calls the police on Sherwood.  Sherwood gets arrested, but he has one more trick up his sleeve to get out of jail, get Baroque to buy the boutique from him, and get Lynn.

If I had a rating system, I’d give Fashions of 1934 2.5 out of 4 stars.  William Powell is pretty good in it, but poor Bette Davis is woefully out of place.  It’s pretty well-known that Warner Brothers really didn’t know what to do with Bette Davis when she first started working for them.  She wasn’t a glamour girl, but Warner’s insisted on trying to make her into one and this was their biggest attempt to shoehorn into that type.  She had blonde hair and was decked out in all sorts of fancy Orry-Kelly gowns, it was so not her style.  At least in movies like 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, even though they tried to make her somewhat glamorous, her part still had some grit to it.  There’s nothing gritty or raw about Fashions of 1934.  It’s a fun and entertaining little movie, but think of it as a William Powell movie more than anything else.  Bette isn’t outstanding here and although Busby Berkeley was involved, there’s only one musical number.  But at least he made the most of his one number, Spin a Little Web of Dreams is a really beautiful scene.  And if you’re interested in costume design, there’s a lot to appreciate here.

Fashion in Film: All About Eve

All About Eve is a movie that I firmly believe deserves every accolade it’s received over the years.  While there is no shortage of acclaim for its acting, direction, and writing, the costuming by Edith Head and Charles Le Maire absolutely can’t be ignored.  This is a prime example of how costume design can be so much more than pretty dresses.  Here, we’ve got costumes that say so much about the characters and what they’re feeling at the time.

20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)

Tommy Connors (Spencer Tracy) is a big shot gangster and when he’s sentenced to time in Sing Sing, he expects to be as much of a big shot in prison as he is out of prison.  He arrives to a crowd of photographers and his lawyer friend Joe Finn (Louis Calhern) tries to bribe warden Paul Long (Arthur Byron) to make things easy for Tommy.  But Paul is one warden who can’t be bought.  Tommy thinks he’s going to call all the shots and is determined to not be broken, but he quickly finds out the warden is even tougher.  When Tommy doesn’t want to wear the uniform, he gets sent to work in the ice house without the warm uniform.  And when Tommy says he refuses to work, the warden sticks him in isolation until he’s begging to work.  When Tommy finally does cave, he eventually becomes a model prisoner and even backs out of being part of an escape attempt.

One day, a telegram arrives for Tommy informing him that his girlfriend Fay (Bette Davis) has been seriously hurt.  Luckily for Tommy, he has built enough trust with the warden that the warden is willing to let him out on his honor just for one day so he can go see Fay.  Tommy gives his word that he’ll come back if it’s the last thing he does.  What Tommy doesn’t know is that his old pal Joe Finn is the one responsible for Fay’s injuries.  Tommy and Finn get into a fight and Fay grabs a gun that’s nearby and shoots Finn.  Even though he’s innocent, he knows he’s in big trouble, so he panics and tries to make a break for it.  The warden is lambasted by the media, but eventually Tommy decides to turn himself in and is put on death row.  When Fay recovers, she tries to tell the truth about what happened, but it’s of no help.

20,000 Years in Sing Sing is much more of a Spencer Tracy movie than it is a Bette Davis movie and he is fantastic in it.  I haven’t seen very many of Spencer’s early movies, so this really was a treat for me to see.  This movie also came pretty early in Bette’s career and is clearly from that era when Warner Brothers didn’t know what to do with her.  Although she’s fine in it, she wasn’t used to her full potential here.  She just wasn’t meant to have her hair dyed blonde and be playing gangster’s girlfriends.  But that being said, this is one of Bette’s better early films, I’d say tied with Three on a Match as the best from her pre-Of Human Bondage era.  I really enjoyed it.  Well written, well acted, and has great direction by Michael Curtiz.  All in all, a sharp little movie.

What’s on TCM: August 2011

It’s that time of year again!  Let Summer Under the Stars commence!  I love this year’s line-up.  Even though there are plenty of the usual SUTS suspects like Bette Davis, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart, more than half of this year’s stars have never been part of SUTS before.  And many of those who have been featured before, haven’t been featured in quite a few years.  Let’s take a look at the full list of stars:

Live Post: The Debbie Reynolds Auction

Even though I’m broke and can’t afford to actually bid on anything in today’s auction, there’s so much amazing stuff up for sale today that I can’t resist trying to follow the auction as best I can.  So I figured I’d try my hand at live blogging and cover the auction the best I can as it happens.  I’m not going to cover every single item up for sale, but I’ll try to keep you updated about some of the more noteworthy items.  So stay tuned, sit back, relax, and live vicariously through other people who can afford to spend insane amounts of money on movie memorabilia.  And I’m just putting it out there right now: I would not be even remotely surprised if Hugh Hefner buys Marilyn Monroe’s white dress from The Seven Year Itch.  A million dollar absentee bid has already been placed on it, so it will definitely be sold for at least that much today.

If you want to follow along with the auction live, just go here, click on “Live Bidding”, then click the option to just watch the auction. There is a live video stream, but no audio.

Updates:

Note – The selling prices I list here don’t include the buyer’s premium.  If you see articles about Judy Garland’s Wizard of Oz test costume selling for more than a million, that source factored in the buyer’s premium.

3:12 PM – The first lot, a 1915 35mm Bell and Howell camera just sold for $32,500!

3:16 PM – Rudolph Valentino’s matador suit from Blood and Sand just went for $210,000.

3:19 PM – Mary Pickford’s headpiece from Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall went for $3,250.

3: 21 PM- Francis X. Bushman’s charioteer helmet from 1925′s Ben Hur sold for $30,000!

3:26 PM – Harold Lloyd’s suit and hat went for $4,000!

3:34 PM – Mary Pickford’s gown from The Taming of the Shrew sold for $17,000.

3:36 PM – Lots 17 and 18, both Douglas Fairbanks costumes from The Taming of the Shrew sold for $20,000 and lot 18 didn’t sell.

3:38 PM – One of Charlie Chaplin’s infamous hats went for $110,000!

3:40 PM – A Model T used by Laurel and Hardy sold for $32,500 and a pair of their suits went for $16,000.

3:42 PM – Carole Lombard’s gown from No Man of Her Own sold for $11,000.

3:47 PM – Claudette Colbert’s Cleopatra gown went for $40,000.

3:52 PM – Greta Garbo’s gown from Anna Karenina also sold for $40,000!

3:53 PM – Harpo Marx’s hat and wig went for $45,000!

4:10 PM – Lots 42, 43, and 44 are the paintings commissioned by Marion Davies and respectively went for $10,000, $11,000, and $17,000.  These really got the bidders going.

4:17  PM – W.C. Fields’ joke box sold for $35,000.

4:39 PM – Norma Shearer’s purple gown from Romeo and Juliet went for $20,000.

5:04 PM – Now we’re into stuff from The Good Earth and people went nuts for some of the furniture!  The pair of chairs went for $20,000, the opium bed for $20,000, two Paul Muni robes for $4,000 each, Luise Rainer’s shirt for $2,000, the lot of stands and other furniture for $3,500, and Luise Rainer’s jacket for $3,000.

5:13  PM – A gown worn by Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette and Lucille Ball in Du Barry was a Lady sold for $11,000.

5:44 PM – Oh, now we’re into a busy bunch of lots!  First up was Marlene Dietrich’s outfit from “The Boys in the Backroom” number in Destry Rides Again, which went for $8,000, one of Judy Garland’s test costumes from The Wizard of Oz went for $910,000, a test pair of the ruby slippers sold for $510,000, an extra’s jacket from the Emerald City scenes of the Wizard of Oz sold for $22,500, Clark Gable’s dressing robe from the production of Gone With the Wind went for $10,000, and Basil Rathbone’s famous Sherlock Holmes caped overcoat sold for $50,000!

5:54 PM – Vivien Leigh’s suit from Waterloo Bridge sold for $16,000.

6:09 PM – Gary Cooper’s military uniform from Sergeant York went for $55,000.

6:16 PM – A couple of costumes worn by James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, the satin jockey shirt went for $27,500 and the clown outfit sold for $15,000.

6:19 PM – Not so fast, Louis!  A suit worn by Claude Rains in Casablanca sold for $55,000!

6:53 PM – Took a dinner break and missed another busy bunch of lots!  Elizabeth Taylor’s riding outfit from National Velvet went for $60,000, Judy Garland’s “Under the Bamboo Tree” dress from Meet Me in St. Louis sold for $16,000, Judy’s dress from the snowman building scene in Meet Me in St. Louis went for $10,000, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra’s sailor suits from Anchors Aweigh went for $27,500 and $15,000 respectively.

7:00 PM – $22,500 for Joan Crawford’s waitress uniform from Mildred Pierce and $5,000 for Ann Blyth’s Mildred Pierce suit.

7:05 PM – Edmund Gwenn’s Santa suit from Miracle on 34th Street just sold for $22,500.

8:12 PM – The gold lame dress worn by Ginger Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway went for $8,000.

8:51 PM – The chiffon robe worn by Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire sold for $18,000.  Then it went into a bunch of items from An American in Paris with Leslie Caron’s peacock dress from the fantasy ballet number for $15,000, Nina Foch’s white halter gown from a party scene for $3,000, and a showgirl costume from the Stairway to Paradise number for $1,100.

9:05 PM – We have reached the Singin’ in the Rain part of the auction.  First were the green and white checked suits worn by Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly, $8,000 and $14,000 respectively.  Jean Hagen’s Marie Antoinette-esque dress sold for $5,500 and Gene Kelly’s period costume went for $9,000.  Debbie’s green and white leaf print dress went for $15,000, Gene Kelly’s jacket from the Broadway Melody Ballet number went for $6,500, Jean Hagen’s black and white fur coat went for $6,000, Donald O’Connor’s “Good Morning” suit didn’t sell, Cyd Charisse’s white Broadway Melody Ballet outfit for $7,000, and Debbie’s “Good Morning” dress went for $27,500.  A pink dress worn by Gwen Carter sold for $3,750, and a bunch of costumes from the “Beautiful Girl” montage brought $5,500.

9:22 PM – Now we’re getting into some of the Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn-related items.  First up is Marilyn’s red “Two Little Girls from Little Rock” dress from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which brought $1.2 million!  Then came the feathered hat worn by Jane Russell when she impersonates Loreli Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, that sold for $4,250.  Lauren Bacall’s wedding dress from How to Marry a Millionaire went for $8,000 and the car used by Marilyn and Cary Grant in Monkey Business sold for $210,000.

9:48 PM – A lot of two safari outfits worn by Grace Kelly in Mogambo sold for $47,500.  A Winchester rifle used by Clark Gable in Mogambo brought in $15,000.

10:00 PM – A couple more from Marilyn Monroe.  The gold dress from River of No Return went for $510,000 and her costume from the “Heat Wave” number in There’s No Business Like Show Business brought in $500,000!

10:52 PM – After a little break, we’re back with the dress everyone’s been waiting for — the infamous Marilyn Monroe white subway dress from The Seven Year Itch.  I fully expected bidding to be out of control for this one and I wasn’t disappointed.  It brought in an astonishing $4.6 million!

11:03 PM – Now we’ve got a couple from To Catch a Thief.  A coat worn by Cary Grant brought in $15,000 and an outfit worn by Grace Kelly earned a jaw dropping $450,000!

11:41 PM – A couple of dresses worn by Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember brought in $6,000 and $11,000.

12:17 AM – One of Lana Turner’s dresses from Peyton Place sold for $4,250.

12:22 AM – Lot number 407 is rather unique because it includes things worn by both Kim Novak and Rita Hayworth in Pal Joey.  It went for $6,500.

12:29 AM – Leslie Caron’s iconic plaid schoolgirl outfit from Gigi went for $65,000.

12:40 AM – Charlton Heston’s tunic and cape from Ben Hur could have been yours for the low, low price of $320,000!

1:32 AM – Marlon Brando’s naval outfit from Mutiny on the Bounty just brought in $90,000!

2:12 AM – Elizabeth Taylor’s famous headdress from Cleopatra went for $100,000 and Richard Burton’s tunic, cape, and sword brought in $85,000.

Oh, who cares what time it is anymore?  Yes, I’m still going!  Aren’t these people tired and broke yet?!  Janet Leigh’s yellow fringed dress from Bye Bye Birdie fetched $3,750 and Bette Davis’ blood stained dress from Hush, Hush…Sweet Charlotte sold for $11,000.

Another big item to watch tonight was Audrey Hepburn’s Ascot dress from My Fair Lady.  I fully expected it to exceed the $200,000-$300,000 and it sure did.  It went up to $3.7 million!

I would say that the hills are alive with the sound of music, but at this time of night, I’m pretty sure that’s a noise ordinance violation.  Julie Andrews’ guitar went for $140,000, her jumper from the “Do Re Mi” number for $550,000, her turquoise and green dress for $45,000, the peasant dress went for $42,500, and a pair of the Trapp children’s outfits sold for $35,000.

And at long last we have reached the Barbara Streisand part of the auction.  First from Funny Girl is her costume from “I’d Rather Be Blue” for $65,000, a lot of the other roller skating costumes for $2,500, the black velvet dress from “My Man” for $16,000, a bunch of stuff worn by the Ziegfeld girls in the “His Love Makes Me Beautiful” number for $7,500, Anne Francis’ silk dress for $1,800, and Kay Medford’s beaded shawl for $1,400.

A jacket worn by Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid brought $8,500 and a dress worn by Katharine Ross went for $16,000.

And back to Streisand.  The purple Hello, Dolly dress went for $55,000 and the gold dress for $100,000.  Surprised the gold dress went for that little, that’s how much it cost to make that dress back in the day.

You’ll be fascinated to know that a shirt worn in the cinematic masterpiece known as Grease 2 sold for $475.

We have finally made it to the final segment of posters/portraits!  The title cards for Blind Husbands fetched $2,000, the lot of three Gloria Swanson title/lobby cards sold for $1,200, the portrait of Gloria Swanson went for $8,500, the lot of two Mabel Normand lobby cards for $800, the pair of silent title/lobby cards for $1,600, the lobby card for Lon Chaney’s The Penalty for $1,700, and the lobby card for Chaplin’s The Idle Class for $1,600.  The portrait of Jean Harlow went for $11,000!

Now it’s high time I called it a night!  Good night everybody!

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

When Ernest and Daisy Stanley (Grant Mitchell and Billie Burke) invite the famous radio personality Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Woolley) to dine at their home while he’s in town for a lecture, they’re only expecting the prestige that comes with having a celebrity come to their home.  What they don’t count on is Sheridan taking a fall on their steps and injuring his hip.  Unable to leave until it’s healed, Sheridan turns the Stanleys’ house completely upside down.  He and his secretary Maggie (Bette Davis) take over the entire first floor of the home: the phone is ringing off the hook, his Christmas presents are being delivered left and right, and Sheridan invites over some colorful guests like members of his prison fan club.  The Stanleys’ house staff is completely exhausted by trying to meet all his demands and dodging Sheridan’s endless barrage of insults.  And just to make things more interesting, some of those Christmas presents are things like penguins and an octopus.

One afternoon, Bert Jefferson (Richard Travis), the owner of the local newspaper, comes by to see if he can get an interview.  Sheridan initially turns him down, but Bert wins him over with some good snarky comments.  Bert also wins over Maggie and the two of them go ice skating together.  Maggie quickly falls in love with Bert and when she reads a play she wrote, she gives it to Sheridan hoping he’d get it into the right hands.  Instead, he sees that Maggie is smitten and, afraid Maggie will quit her job to be with him, calls up his actress friend Lorraine Sheldon (Ann Sheridan) and has her come to town right away.

When Lorraine arrives on Christmas Eve, he tells her to try to charm Bert away from Maggie.  Even though Lorraine tries hard, Maggie sees exactly what Sheridan is trying to do.  Another actor friend of Sheridan’s, Beverly Carlton, comes to town on Christmas Eve, too.  As luck would have it, Beverly can do an uncanny impression of Lorraine’s current boyfriend so Maggie has Beverly call Lorraine, pretend to be her boyfriend, and tell her he wants to marry her.  Lorraine buys it hook, line, and sinker, but when Sheridan finds out who really called her, he fills her in and she goes right back to working on Bert.

By the time Christmas morning rolls around, all sorts of chaos ensues in the Stanley home.  Maggie quits her job, Sheridan’s friend Banjo (Jimmy Durante) comes to town, Bert decides to go with Lorraine, and, to top it all off, Ernest Stanley cracks and brings the sheriff over to force Sheridan out of his house.  But when Maggie tells Sheridan off, he realizes he has to get Lorraine away from Bert to make Maggie happy.  Luckily Banjo come up with an idea to get Lorraine away from Bert and off to Nova Scotia with him.  With Lorraine on her way to Nova Scotia, Sheridan gives Maggie his blessing to marry Bert and is finally ready to leave.  But just as he’s out the door, he slips once again and it’s back to the Stanley home for him.

I adore The Man Who Came to Dinner!  It’s so incredibly sharp and witty, I just can’t get enough of it.  Bette Davis didn’t make too many comedies in her long career, which I always thought was a shame because she was often absolutely hilarious in interviews.  She was never going to be a rival to Carole Lombard, but she knew how to deliver a witty line, which was exactly what this movie called for.  This was really a nice breath of fresh air in Bette’s career when you consider that she made this right after The Little Foxes and in the same year she also did In This Our Life and Now, Voyager.  The supporting cast was great, Jimmy Durante and Ann Sheridan were a lot of fun.  But even though Bette Davis gets top billing, there’s no denying that the real star here is Monty Woolley.  He was amazing at delivering all those razor-sharp comebacks.  I always love a movie full of snappy comebacks and The Man Who Came to Dinner certainly gives movies like The Women a run for the money in that department!  It’s one of those movies you have to see more than once just to catch everything.  But it’s such a delightful movie, watching it more than once is no chore.

Three on a Match (1932)

Even as children, it was clear that Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), Vivian Kirkwood (Ann Dvorak), and Ruth Wescott (Bette Davis) were on three very different paths in life.  Ruth was always very serious about doing well in school, graduated top of the class, and grew up to be a stenographer.  Mary was a bit more rebellious and even spent some time in a reform school, but grew up and went into show business.  Vivian, on the other hand, was the popular girl and went on to marry Robert Kirkwood (Warren William), a rich lawyer, and become a housewife.

After their time together in school, years go by and the girls fall out of touch.  But they end up meeting up again for lunch and Vivian reveals that even though it looks like she’s got it made, she’s really quite bored with her life.  To add some spice to her life, she takes a cruise, where she meets Michael Loftus (Lyle Talbot).  But before the ship even leaves, she takes her son and runs off with Michael.  While Vivian takes up a hard-partying lifestyle full of booze, cocaine, and parties, quality parenting gets put on the back burner.  Police investigate their disappearances, but the only person who finds them is Mary.  Mary tries to talk some sense into her, but when she won’t listen, she goes to see Robert to tell him where they are.  He takes his son back, divorces Vivian, and goes on to marry Mary.

Meanwhile, Vivian has hit rock bottom.  She’s run out of money and she and Michael owe $2,000 to a trio of gangsters, Harve (Humphrey Bogart), Dick, and Ace.  Michael goes to Robert and threatens to go public about Mary’s criminal background, but Robert isn’t fazed by him and throws him out of his office.  Instead, Michael hatches a plan to kidnap Mary’s son and hold him hostage.  The whole ordeal makes Mary realize just how far she’s fallen and, in order to save her son, takes some lipstick, writes a note on her nightgown, and throws herself from the window.

Three on a Match is one wild ride!  I just love it.  The cast is really outstanding.  This is one of Bette Davis’ early movies and she wasn’t really being used to her full potential yet.  Joan Blondell was good, but the real star was Ann Dvorak.  She did a spectacular job playing a junkie.  When she was supposed to be strung out, she was so jittery and nervous, it must have been really hard to get that just right.  This was also was also an early appearance from Humphrey Bogart.  In fact, it was the first time he played a gangster and he certainly showed a lot of promise in that type of role.  Three on a Match is quite possibly the ultimate example of a movie that packs a lot into a short amount of time.  It’s only 63 minutes long, and doesn’t waste a minute of it!  A fantastic cast, great performances, it’s well written, and it’s all packed into just over an hour.  What’s not to like here?