Three on a match

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Article about three on a match:

Three on a Match Three on a Match (1932): My Guilty Pleasure. Why do we love pre-Code films? Fast pace?

 

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Check. Great stories? Check. Great casts? Check again. Oh, come on. Let’,s be honest. It’,s the sex, depravity and lingerie! I consider all pre-Code films guilty pleasures. Each generation seems to think it is the first to discover sex. To be honest, the biggest kick I get out of pre-Code films is the fact that we are seeing depravity and sex before the big Hollywood clean up. It’,s kind of like watching a movie of your grandparents dirty dancing. Many of the pre-Codes are terrific and have marvelous stars, but I’,m being honest when I say I’,m in it for the sex, drugs, depravity, slips and frilly undergarments. There. That being said, Three on a Match, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, is one of my favorite pre-Codes. It has all of the above-mentioned ingredients, plus kidnapping, child neglect and so much more. And –, it’,s all done in 63 minutes. It comes from my favorite 1930s studio, Warner Brothers. Their early 1930s films have that make-it-quick “,ripped from today’,s headlines”, look, but are loaded with so much talent that these tawdry stories are elevated to an art form. In 1932, the year of Three on a Match, the Warner’,s roster consisted of James Cagney, Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson and our delicious cast of characters. The Story. Our little story stars a trio of my favorite Warner Brothers ladies: Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell and Bette Davis. The male cast is headed up by Mr. pre-Code himself, Warren William, and nasty support comes from Allen Jenkins, Lyle Talbot, Edward Arnold and that old pre-Code meanie, Humphrey Bogart. The three ladies in question are childhood school acquaintances (PS 62). The opening sequences quickly establish their fate: little Mary is mischievous, likes the boys, smokes and has trouble with authority. Clearly, she is a candidate for the dreaded reform school. Ruth, the class valedictorian is a bookish goody-goody who will be the good girl of the trio, and Vivian is the beautiful and spoiled rich girl. Time marches on (shown through a neat montage of newspaper headlines and popular songs depicting the ensuing years from 1919-1930 when our story begins) and each girl has fulfilled her destiny. Mary (now Joan Blondell) is in that sinful trade, show business. Ruth (now Bette Davis) is a stenographer (class valedictorian = secretary. Ah, those were the days, but I digress…,). Vivian (now Ann Dvorak) is married to attorney Robert Kirkwood (Warren William), still rich, spoiled and now bored. They meet for lunch and, throwing caution to the wind, knowingly light their three cigarettes on one match. Legend has it that it is unlucky to light three smokes on one match, as the holder of the third one lit will die. Vivian envies the other women and confides that she is restless (“,I want things passionately and, then when I get them, don’,t seem to want them anymore”,). She is the third one on the match. Uh oh. Viv has an annoyingly curly-headed little son who seems to think he is Shirley Temple, a handsome home and an attentive husband who senses her restlessness. Wanting to please her, he books an ocean cruise to Europe, but before the ship sails he gets called away on business, leaving Viv and Junior to take the trip by themselves. Mary, still the catalyst for mischief, meets Vivian on the ship before it sails. She and her chums are going to a bon voyage party, but are not taking the cruise. Viv is invited and before you know it, sparks are flying between her and no-good gambling man Mike Loftus (Lyle Talbot), who proves his admiration for the sophisticated Vivian by telling her “,you’,re not like those other stuffed brassieres on Park Avenue.”, What girl could resist a line like that? Well, before you know it, Vivian gets off the ship and on the dope. She takes her boy and leaves her husband for a life of sex and drugs, liquor and lingerie. Mary and Ruth are concerned and side with husband Kirkwood (who falls for Mary and marries her after divorcing Vivian, but likes to keep Ruth around as a governess. Hmmm…,.). Kirkwood even gets his boy back, but not for long. Vivian and Loftus eventually run out of money and Loftus gets in deep with some bad gangster-types. Owing a lot of money he can’,t repay, he agrees to kidnap Vivian’,s boy in order to extort money from Kirkwood. Well, things go bad and, in a tense finale (where Bogey figures it’,s best to kill the little boy), the police close in on the kidnappers and the boy. Vivian, suffering from withdrawal, finally finds some sense of self-sacrifice and mother-love (to a child that has been horribly neglected). Feverishly, she scrawls the location of her son on her nightgown in lipstick to alert the police and jumps out of a four-story window to her death.

Three on a match movie

 

 

Three on a match 1932 full movie

 

 

Three on a match 1932

 

 

3 on a match movie

 

 

3 on a match