Marked Woman is an extremely excellent gangster film by Warner Bros, torn from the headlines of 1935 depicting the sensationalized exploits of the notorious gangster Lucky Luciano who ran a prostitution ring & was finally brought to trial by the celebrated Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Thanks to the production code of 1934 the prostitutes had to be toned down for the movie & became clip joint "hostesses".Lucky Luciano's screen counterpart is Johnny Vanning (Eduardo Ciannelli)who takes over a nightclub called the "Club Intime".He tells his henchman (Ben Welden) several times while scoping the club out & looking the dames over, "make a note of it Charlie". Bette Davis is Mary Dwight one of the hostesses & she just electrifies the screen from the first moment & she immediately stands up to the tough gangster & gets his respect when she talks him out of firing hostess Estelle (Mayo Methot), Vanning thought she was getting too old & wants young dames.Vanning closes the club temporarily to allow time to transform the club & rename it "The Club Intimate". When the club reopens for business one of the suckers ( Damien O'Flynn) runs up a bill he can't afford to pay & leaves the club with Mary Dwight. Charlie (Welden) sends a couple of the "boys" after him....pay or die! Later when the police find his body they also find a matchbook in his pocket with Marys address which leads to her arrest & is taken to the Dictrict Attorney's office for questioning. Humphrey Bogart is superb in the Thomas E. Dewey role of the Special Prosecutor David Graham.David Graham (Bogart) is a relentlessly driven crusader of justice determined to put crime boss Johnny Vanning & his henchman in jail & smash organized crime. Graham needs & tries to convince Mary & the other girls to testify against their gangster boss. Graham has a difficult time getting the girls cooperation for they are loyal to Vanning. It's only after Mary's sister Betty turns up (Jane Bryan) & is later killed accidentally by Johnny Vanning at a party does Mary retaliate & runs back to Graham & agrees to testify against Vanning along with the other girls.The chemistry between Bette Davis & Humphrey Bogart is fantastic & the scenes with Davis & Eduardo Ciannelli as the gangster is sizzling hot. Other reviewers haven't given much praise to Bogart's role of the Special Prosecutor & I don't know why but I thought he was very convincing & believable as the crusading D.A. Marked Woman was following the trend of gangster movies shifting the emphasis from the forces of vice & crime over to the forces of justice. To satisfy the new production code, gangsters could no longer be glorified.Beginning in 1935 with James Cagney in G-Men, Cagney was an FBI agent, in 1936 came Bullets or Ballots with Edward G. Robinson playing a policeman posing as a gangster. In 1937 it was Marked Woman with Humphrey Bogart on the side of law & order. A clever Warner Bros trick to move these actors over to the side of law & order & also because Cagney, Robinson & Bogart wanted a break from gangster roles. All 3 actors hated being typecast & would always fight for better roles.Because Cagney & Robinson were stars they could afford to say no & turn down roles they didn't like, Bogart didn't have enough leverage to say no yet so as a result he got stuck with the gangster roles more frequently. In Marked Woman when Bogart is first seen you can see the gangster written all over him but as the movie progresses Bogart grows into his role & really sinks his teeth into the Thomas E.Dewey character breaking the stereotype. Quite a contrast from Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest.In 1992 I found Marked Woman on VHS & when I watched it I was so blown away by this movie after rewinding the tape I immediately watched it again. I've never done that with any other movie. I couldn't get enough of Davis & Bogart, they really set the screen on fire. Also Eduardo Ciannelli as the gangster is dynamite, frightening & memorable & it's a rare treat to see Bogart as a good guy & hero for a change. Because of that this movie gets a 10 !!

After watching this film, I'm surprised it was released as late as 1937. Given that the main characters are call girls and this fact is central to several plot points, I expected to find it was pre-code. Still, thinking back on it, this fact is made clear without direct references. The most direct notice of the nature of their work is given by the reaction of the little sister when this is made a point in court by the defense attorney.Another point in my casual mis-dating of this film is the quality of the picture. There is a black haze that rounds out the corners, but this may be due to the way the film was stored so many years ago. It gives the movie a sense of being a few years older than it is. Call it character.Bette Davis gave a good performance in this movie, walking the line between under and over-acting, with a very balanced treatment of the main role. She was also prettier than I've ever seen her. Humphrey Bogart had a bit of dash in his appearance as the clean cut assistant District Attorney, spending much of his time arguing the case for the prosecution..It's interesting to look back a the way the trial was handled. There isn't a lot of excess drama in those scenes. They are very direct in their approach to the necessary exposition, treating it almost as quick action which gets to the heart of the story. Besides some last minute badgering of a sobbing witness, there isn't much to compare to the stirring soliloquies of more modern courtroom scenes. Even the way the cameras shot the scene is pretty basic, with only the occasional interesting perspective.The plot is easy to follow, revolving around a minor crime lord, a group of call girls and the ability of the court system to triumph. The ending is satisfying in terms of plot, but this is the biggest clue that this is a reflection of the direction Hollywood went in the mid to late 30s. Good always wins. The ending for the characters is not so certain and this is one of the most dramatic parts of the film as the characters go their separate ways to uncertain destinies.

Marked Woman was one of those films that was emasculated by the Code when it came out in 1937. Had it been done a few years earlier the women would have clearly been labeled prostitutes instead the euphemistic 'hostess' at a nightclub clip joint. Of course the inspiration for the story wasn't developed yet when the Code came into affect in 1934.The inspiration for the story is what in real life turned out to be the chink in the armor of crime boss Charles 'Lucky' Luciano. The rackets boss controlled prostitution on a large scale and it was the women who worked for him who came to Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey and their testimony is what brought him down. Unlike the crime boss here, Luciano was not charged with murder.Our story in Marked Woman concerns a group of women who worked for boss Johnny Vaning, the Luciano character played with absolute relish by Eduardo Ciannelli. the women are Bette Davis, Isabelle Jewell, Rosalind Marquess, Mayo Methot, and Lola Lane. When a 'john' stiffs on his bill at the clip joint, he's rubbed out and Davis's testimony helps get Ciannelli off. That incidentally was all part of a set up engineered by John Litel as Ciannelli's very shrewd lawyer. Definitely the kind of attorney who really earns his fees from the mob.But when Davis's younger sister Jane Bryan winds up dead, Davis experiences a change of heart. She becomes quite the crusader and this time cooperates with prosecutor Humphrey Bogart for real.Humphrey Bogart is the prosecutor in District Attorney Henry O'Neill's office who is on a mission to take Ciannelli down. His part here is far more of a straight arrow than the usually cynical Bogart we're used to seeing. He's the Dewey figure in the film.When Marked Woman came out Thomas E. Dewey was running for District Attorney of New York County. Dewey was a former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District in New York and was later made a special prosecutor by joint agreement with Governor Herbert Lehman and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. But as luck would have it he was making his first bid for elected office that year. It was as Special Prosecutor not as an elected District Attorney that he brought Lucky Luciano to the bar of justice. I guarantee there was no one in New York County in 1937 who saw Marked Woman and did not know who this film was referring to. It was a great piece of campaign propaganda for him.Of course Ciannelli is convicted and Bogart is the hero of the hour. But it's that last shot of Davis and her friends going off alone and friendless into the night that will stay with you forever. In fact they were the real heroes, but it's oblivion more than likely for them.Marked Woman is an effective, but rather dated film. Davis is good if melodramatic. The best performances are by Ciannelli and Litel. If you want the real story, I highly recommend Richard Norton Smith's excellent biography on Thomas E. Dewey.

Marked Woman must have been quite jolting when it was released in 1936. Although thoroughly implied, there is prostitution at the center of the plot, and everything nasty that goes along with it. Thankfully, the violence is off screen, but we are not spared the aftermath of violent acts.Bogart breaks away from his bad guy roles and plays the hero, quite well. Bette Davis is in her usual good form. There are a couple of melodramatic scenes for Davis which will seem dated, but she also will wow you with some killer lines delivered as only Bette can.Many '30s films are clunky and hard to sit through. This is not one of them. It is fast paced and full of moral dilemmas and interesting characters. To add to the interest of the story, it was based on an actual news story of that time.